The Glass Case
by isawsparks
Summary: Spashley AU with some slight reversals.
1. The Beginning

My life had started out simple enough. I was a girl, just a little girl, who was kind of all alone. Not that I really cared. Not that much, anyway. I wasn't a big people person. My mother used to say she admired that about me. That I was so independent. That I marched to my own drum. It made me feel good, her love and approval. It always did. Always has.

It's only now that I realize it was probably for a lack of other things to admire. Not that I was a bad kid. Not that I was clumsy, or slow, or dumb (that I know of), I guess there's nothing truly worth seeing inside something blank. I guess there's no pride in a life set on pause.

It's pretty easy being dependent on yourself, when it's all you have.

But I never thought about that. I never knew a thing about it. Back then my wallpaper life had nothing to do with disliking people. Had nothing to do with them disliking me. After all, how could they, if they never even noticed me? No, I didn't dislike people, I loved them. I just didn't...need them. I relied on myself. I got along fine on my own. I preferred it. I loved living on the outside, peering inside. Looking in on all those little things I never knew. Like a student in a museum, I walked on tip toes. With wide eyes, and parted lips. Fingers bumping and grazing the delicate glass. Breathing in the dust. Breathing in the life. Breathing in every single minute detail.

Glass cases were my world. Even though, I never actually lived inside one. Even though, I pretty much belonged nowhere.

I guess that makes me somewhat pathetic and somewhat sad. But, strange thing is, I wasn't. I really wasn't. I guess you can't miss something you never had. I guess you can't judge something you don't know. And I didn't. I never knew any different. I never knew what else life had to offer. I never knew that it was better. Infinitely better.

I lived inside my books, I lived inside people watching. I lived inside my parent's sweet and small house on the corner of Beacon Street, where all day long children's laughter flowed through my open windows, as they biked their way down our road into the night. Into memories of what would become their golden years. Their untouchable childhood.

I didn't mind though. I stored their memories inside my own. I remembered the way groups of little girls my age whispered smiles into each others ears. I felt what it might feel like to be kissed like the fumbling couples beneath that old oak tree, behind the elementary school. I imagined how freeing riding in the quarterback's convertible, with the top down, must be.

I wrapped it all inside myself. Never believing it to be my own, I'm not crazy, or at least not that crazy. No, I took it because I had to. I took it cause I had nothing else. I was thirsty, so thirsty for a life, never realizing I already had one. Just waiting to be tapped. Like a waterfall behind an impossibly strong dam, my life was waiting to fall free.

And then one day it did. One day, I felt the slightest, most minuscule, rush.

Her name was Spencer Carlin.

I can remember the exact moment I first laid eyes on her. It was the first day of senior year at King High and there she was, crossingcampus in an oblivious whirl. She fumbled, unknowingly, down path after path with some strange form of grace. With weird clarity. And of course, I was hooked. I was immediately captivated. I was instantly intrigued. How had I never noticed her before? How had I never noticed this beautiful girl, more beautiful than anyone I'd ever seen, with her bright blue eyes and cascading blond curls?

I soon found out, not on my own of course. Blended in the background, I used my ears, I used my eyes. I heard the truth. I saw through the rumors. Her family had uprooted from Ohio to move here, to LA. Her mother was some big time surgeon, like Andy Brown of _Everwood_ big time. Her brother Glen was a hot shot basketball player.

She was a rebel, apparently.

She was a troublemaker, supposedly.

She was gorgeous, undoubtedly.

I needed no one to see that.

I didn't know anything more. I knew no more than what my eyes saw, what my mind perceived. She kept to herself during lunch. She scribbled furiously in her notebook during our one shared art class. As far as I could see, aside from her stunning beauty, Spencer Carlin was no different from me.

And maybe that's what made me so curious.

Would I ever do something about it? Never. Would I attempt conversation? No way. That was not my style, that was not how I operated. So, instead, I watched her from afar. I took in every tic, every tilt, every little thing about her that so many other people ignored. Because so many are careless. So many rush past the little things. The precious details that make a person who they are. I never skipped those. I lived for them, even though I'd never understand them. Even though I'd never know them.

Even though I thought I'd never know her.

And for a good while, I was right. I didn't know her. For a good few months, I continued to live inside my dusty books and my pretty little house on the corner of Beacon Street. I continued to live inside my dusty self, more dusty than those books. Yeah, I kept on living my easy unchanging life, seeing everything from a third person view. Breathing air through someone else's lungs. Waking up every morning, going to bed every night, and finding a way to get through the in between. Finding a way to survive.

And then one day came along, one day so subtle, so seemingly insignificant, I barely recognized it.

That one day, in all it's sneaky significance, snuck up inside me and it changed me. It changed it all. It changed everything. Because for once, I wasn't watching and I wasn't listening. I wasn't wishing and I wasn't imagining.

Because, for once, I wasn't outside glass walls.

I was inside them.

Finally, I was inside.


	2. Fortunately Late

_It's strange how everything started out the same, started out so normal, on the day where everything would change. Just like any other morning, I woke up thirty seconds before my alarm, already running for the shower by the time I should have been waking up. Already combed and dressed and ready by the time the sun had barely risen._

I guess that's not really all that strange, though, that everything had started out fine. I guess it's really not that strange or surprising at all, how I never saw it coming. I mean, does anyone ever really see it?

"Mom!!" After a thorough search of the near empty floor beneath my bed, I fling my body upright, breathing a million strands of hair from my face, "Have you seen my Chucks?"

_I should have known right then. Should have seen things just weren't right. Things weren't as they had been. I should have seen the kink that had worked it's way, so excruciatingly slow, into my normal day. Barely denting my perfect routine. I should have seen it all right there, in that very moment. Everything was about to unravel._

"Your whats honey?"

_But I didn't. Because maybe it was too gradual. Because maybe no one ever sees it. Or maybe I just didn't want to._

I can practically hear her obliviousness as she pads her way down the carpeted hall towards my bedroom, leaning into the doorway once she's arrived. Token laundry basket sitting on her hip, sitting there so naturally, I'm sure it looks like my former two year old self.

"Sneakers, Mom, sneakers."

She rolls her eyes in that playful loving way that _I_ love so much, because it makes me feel so apart of things.

"Sweetie, it'd be easier for me to fit inside a pair of Sevens than find a pair of your sneakers."

"Sevens?"

Suddenly I see a look on her face, most likely mirroring the one I made for her just a few minutes ago.

"Jeans, Ash, jeans."

"Right. Sevens. Jeans." I brush it off, only _slightly_ embarrassed for not knowing the latest fashion trends inside my probably too baggy cords and mismatched cardigan sweater over a plain white tee, "...It's ok. I can find them on my own."

But I probably won't, I've already searched high and low for those sneakers. And it's not like I lose things normally. I never do, so it only frustrates me more. It only has me sighing, because if Mom can't help me, who can?

So I brush a few more wayward curls from my face and push my black framed glasses back up my nose. For no other reason than out of habit, loving the feel of familiar.

"You know..." My mother takes a step back, before stepping forward once again "...I think I saw some, what do you call 'em, Chucks?...down in the laundry room."

When I look back towards her, I smile because she's smiling, so inclusively. I smile because I'm kind of like her, and that makes me happy. That makes me _so_ happy. Because she's so beautiful and she's so strong and she always makes it look easy. So easy.

"Thanks mom."

That smile, however, would probably fade if I thought about the ways I'm so _unlike_ her.

"No problem, sugar."

And I don't know which way that smile would go, if I allowed myself to realize she's the person I could be.

------------

They weren't in the laundry room. Or in the front hall. Or under the living room sofa.

No those beloved sneakers up and left me sometime in the night. Probably on purpose.

And now thanks to those damn red Chucks, I have to settle for my checkered vans. A shabby substitute, and as if that weren't bad enough, they've made me late, very late. And I'm _never_ late.

They've made me lose my favorite parking spot in the shade, just on the outside of the packed lot. Now, I have to park out on the street, practically a million miles away, and as I hustle my way for the school, breaking a sweat before I even reach the front pavement, it only gets worse. Because now it's miraculously pouring fat drops of rain, adding mother natures sweat to my own, as if I needed the extra moisture. As if God wants me to know, he's still up there smiling down on me.

After what feels like hours, because all unfortunate situations feel that way, I find relief inside the near empty halls, hugging my Lands End backpack tighter around my shoulders. Wrapping my body perfectly, protectively, inside it. Feeling like I need the extra security solely for how bad I must look right now. Hiding the colossal mess I've become, the one damply shuffling through deserted halls inside her checkered feet.

I don't even bother to lock and load at my locker, or fix myself up in the bathroom, because I don't have the minutes to spare. And even if I did, why bother? No amount of fixing in any bathroom could make me into my mother.

Not like I care about that. Well, not that much, anyway.

By the time I practically slide into Perspective Drawing's door and glimpse inside its tiny window, I have to cringe. Because everyone's already seated and already quiet, and that means I'm more late than I thought. That means my out of breath and soaking entrance is not as under the radar as I had hoped.

The class room is horribly quiet as I humbly squeak my way inside, feeling a blush burn its way through my entire body as everyone looks up at me. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for all those snobby art students, living in their skinny jeans and thrift shop tees. Wearing their paint stains like beloved scars, only sticking me out further, because I don't have _any_. Because I don't think _anything_, painted or permanent, has ever broken my surface.

"Ashley, so nice of you to join us, we were afraid we'd miss you today."

The teacher, a man with my eyes and smile, winks as he finishes flipping through some papers at the front of the room, and I can't help but playfully roll those matching eyes back at him. Because I don't mind that my father teaches this class. I don't mind because he treats me like everyone else.

And then I feel "everyone else". I feel their eyes on me, knowing they're probably thinking something along the lines of 'she must be new', as I mumble a weak reply.

"Yeah, sorry, I got a little held up."

But along with the rest of the class, I don't even think he's listening to my rambling anymore. Which only leaves me to hear it echo in my ears, as I search out a place to sit. Because naturally, _my_ seat, located in the far back right corner (much like my parking place), has already been snagged. Taken by none other than Justin Berardi. Probably so he can sleep. Which makes me realize it really makes no damn difference who's sitting in my seat. Him or me. We're both hiding, and that makes us more similar than we'll both probably ever realize.

I can feel my pulse increasing, breath stinting, cause there really are no seats left. None.

Well that's not true. There is one. There is one right _there_, second row back, but the only problem with _that_ seat is...

"This one's open."

...She's sitting beside it. _The_ girl. The one with the crystal eyes and golden hair. Spencer. And now she's calling out to me. She's actually inviting _me_, to join her at her two person table.

_You'd think I would have realized it right then. I would have seen how all those strange unfortunate circumstances had raveled themselves together, actually tying me to that moment. Actually bringing me to face that open seat beside that gorgeous girl. _

_But, of course, I didn't realize it. I don't think I realized anything other than my wildly beating heart._

My frozen face must look as surprised as I feel. My searching eyes must scream "me?", because she kind of chuckles, in the most innocent and inviting way.

"I mean, if you want it."

"Um..." I stutter, looking around, as if people are actually interested in what I might do (which they obviously aren't) "...I, uh..."

"Oh come on, I won't bite."

She's looking at me, sweetly, in a way that no one aside from my parents, has ever looked at me. And maybe that's what has me finally moving towards that terrifying chair beside hers. Sitting down, stiffer than a 2x4.

The rest of the class gets caught up in the chaos my tardiness has granted them, picking up conversation with each other, while the silence between Spencer and I only seems to blare through it. While the silence between us grows kind of painfully awkward, although I have a feeling most things with me probably are. It's not like I'm a real conversation starter. It's not like I have anything aside from my books and my tv to talk about.

But maybe Spencer does, because it looks like she's going to attempt small talk.

"So, you're -"

"Ok guys..." But, thanks and no thanks to my father, she's cut off, "...I don't think there's much left to explain. How bout we just pick up from where we left off Friday."

And like that everyone's up and moving, going to retrieve art supplies, snaking their own private spots to work. Drawing in their own worlds.

Everyone but Spencer and me.

_Not that surprising, right?_

I really don't know where to look, or what to do, awkwardly looking around at everyone knowing just where to look and just what to do. Feeling myself flooded in the rain, my sweat, and discomfort.

Of course, Spencer's not flooded in anything but certainty. From the corner of my eyes, I see her pulling a sketch pad out from her so very cool messenger bag, covered in pins and Sharpie messages.

"Hey Kiddo..." My dad breaks my trance, strolling up to our table, partially sitting on it while keeping his voice soft, "...how you doing? Everything ok?"

Feeling kind of embarrassed for having to talk to my father in the middle of the classroom, let alone right next to _her_, I practically whisper, as if no one will hear me but him, "Oh, yeah, I just..." Thankfully, I stop myself from admitting to stressing out over a silly pair of shoes, "...was helping mom out with something."

He laughs, knowingly. I'm a terrible liar because I've never needed to be a good one. I've never needed to tell any lies, and of course, my father sees straight through this ridiculous and unnecessary one I've just told.

"Alright then, good to hear..." He smiles, all good nature and ease, in his casual jeans and button down shirt. Wearing those same snobby art student scars. Scars that look far safer on him.

"Hey Mr. D, can you help me with something?" Calls from somewhere behind us, back by the pottery wheels, back in someone else's world.

"Sure thing, Derrick."

My father smiles once more, glancing to my left, "Hey Spence, you mind filling Ash in on what we all discussed at the beginning of class?"

I don't look towards her, but she must have nodded yes, because my father's already walking back behind us. And I'm kind of watching. Watching the way everyone in class loves him. How they all call him Mr. D, or Raife, or the best teacher ever.

I've heard them, I've see them. They all love him, and I do too. He is the best teacher and he is awesome.

I just wish they'd love me too.

Suddenly, something bumps my arm and grabs my attention more than I even realize. And as I abruptly turn, finding a gray towel (that used to be white) extended towards me, I have to blink a few times. I have to register Spencer's beautifully raspy voice, asking "So Mr. D's your dad, huh?"

"Uh..." My eyes looking down at her towel covered hand still resting against my arm, fazes me more than I wish, "...um, he's..." I'm trying so hard to focus, to understand what she's asking, but as soon as I bravely chance looking into her eyes, straight on for the first time, all hope of coherency is out the window.

She doesn't look away from me, because she's not scared or blown away by my muddy eyes like I am by her turquoise ones. No, she's looking at me as if I were anyone, instead of someone, like her.

She pushes the towel into my arm once more, nudging me into gentle submission.

"It's my drawing towel, to wipe my hands on cause things tend to get dirty in here, you know?" Her eyebrows raise, in slight question, as a tiny genuine smile plays across her lips, "...it looks like you got caught in the rain. I thought you could use it."

My hands finally hold onto her 'drawing towel', of their own accord, as my lips tug into a hearty smile. Immediately moved by _her_ thoughtful gesture.

"Oh it's not, like, dirty or anything, you know, right now..." For the first time she doesn't look as composed as she normally does, and I'm guessing it's cause she misinterpreted me being moved for me being appalled, "...I wash it every Sunday, so looks like it's your lucky day. You know, it being Monday and all."

She's babbling. Spencer Carlin, in all her untouchable beauty and mystique, is sitting here rambling to _me_.

It relaxes me a fraction of an iota of a bit.

"So you never answered the question..." And then she's back to cool and composed Spencer Carlin, the one I've seen dodging away from the fray at lunch, as she flips open her sketch pad.

"What question?" And then I'm back to my disheveled and messy self, blinking repeatedly, reaching back into the recesses of my short term memory.

She giggles faintly.

"Mr. D. He's your dad?"

Oh. Right.

"Yeah, yeah..." I sigh, heavily, cause I kind of already know where this is going, "...he's my dad."

A smile so wide and bright fills her face, looking thoughtful and I can't help but feel a strange feeling in my stomach. Knowing she's about to throw one of those 'your dad's the coolest teacher ever', 'your dad rocks', or my favorite 'you're so lucky to have him as a dad". Knowing it's going to kill me to hear her compliment my dad before she compliments me.

And now I feel awful for forgetting how right she'd be. For neglecting how lucky _I_ am to have him.

"Huh..." She stands, crossing her arms over her sketch pad against her chest, tilting her head just a smidgen to the left, a sincere smile covering her lips, like she knows what I'm thinking, "...he's alright. I guess."

And then she's gone, moving off into a dark corner or a bright window sill or some other little piece of the world she can call her own for the next 45 minutes.

But I'm still here, smiling. I'm still here, feeling a tiny rush of something move through me. Something I don't understand and something I've never felt.

Suddenly, that something stops, though, as I remember she was supposed to fill me in on what I missed at the beginning of class. So I turn back, looking for her and finding her perched under the light of a window. Looking out across the green fields of the front lawn, like it were the glass cases inside my museums. Like she were observing life from the outside, needing to be inside.

And I can't help but get caught up in _that_ sight, for just a moment longer. Feeling myself connect with anyone, let alone _someone_ like her, before I face forward again. Slowly, taking it in. Slowly, feeling that strange rush sinking back inside me once more, and still not understanding it.

But not needing to.

No, I'm alright with being in the dark after seeing her in the light. I'm happy to just stay straight where I am, doodling in my sketch pad, at this two person table.

Cause maybe this can be my little piece of the world today.

Cause maybe I don't need to know what I missed this morning.

Maybe all I need to know is what I just saw. 


	3. Peeling

She never did tell me what she was supposed to.

What my father had told the class, she never did pass along. And while, normally, I'd probably be dying of curiosity, needing to know everything, I'm not. I'm ok not knowing, and not just cause I can ask my dad when I get home.

No, today as I stroll past all the pretty cars parked in places I'll probably never see, I'm more than content.

Maybe because it's Monday, and school's done with for the day. Maybe it's cause the sun's come out again, stopping whatever weird rain storm had ushered me into school this morning.

Or maybe it's something else. Maybe it's that gray-that's-supposed-to-be-white drawing rag residing in my backpack.

The one she never took back. The one she never even bothered to look back for. Even when I called out to her, all she left me with, before careening out that door, was a smile. A smile that might as well have said "Oh, forgot about that".

And then she was gone. Just like that.

But it's just as well. I mean what else would I have said? What else would I have mumbled into oblivion about?

Kicking some mindless stones out of my way, I breathe a hard breath realizing there's nothing I would've given her. There's nothing I could _have_ given her. The thought probably should make me sad, but knowing I have something of hers negates it. Completely negates it.

I take the wide turn out of the hot parking lot, making my way down that forever road towards my car, hearing all the cool kid's chatter of after school plans fading away into the background.

Just like me.

"Ash, right?"

Suddenly, my breath hitches so hard in my throat, screeching like a car going too fast.

Maybe I'm not as blended into the background as I thought. Maybe my wallpaper life is starting to peel away, needing to breathe, because once again it's her voice. It's _her_ calling out to _me_, for the second time today, and it's stopped me dead in my tracks. It has me glimpsing left to right, perhaps frantically, trying to find the gorgeous source of that gorgeous voice. But it's not there. It's nowhere. And I'd probably start wondering if I had imagined it, if it weren't for her unmistakable giggling, going off adorably all around me.

"I'm down here."

And she is down there. Plopped on the dirty curb, in her pretty jeans, like it were her bedroom floor.

And it takes me far too long to come up with the lamest reply ever. "Oh. Hey."

She doesn't even look up to me, but I know there's a slight scowl residing on her face as she lightly smacks her back tire, elbows resting on her knees. "I must've run over a nail or something cause it's flat. Blows, man..." She giggles again, somehow more adorable than before, "...well, no that doesn't work does it? If it blew, it wouldn't be flat, right?" And now she's looking up at me, one graceful hand coming to shield her blue eyes squinting into mine, looking more effortlessly beautiful than I've ever seen anyone look before.

Suddenly, her eyes lock with mine, and I'm not sure if I'm imagining this, but they stay there. They stay right with mine, getting caught up in our stare, just like in the art room. But this time, it feels equal. This time, her eyes feel like they're looking at someone they know, instead of someone they've merely seen.

And then she breaks it.

"What? Is there..." Seeming cutely insecure, her hand wipes at her face, "Do I have something...?"

"Oh, no, no, you're..." _Amazing_, "...you're good." I sigh heavily, not doing so well at masking my disappointment, because maybe that eyelock was all in my head. Either way, she's looking back at her tire now, looking defeated, and I finally find a voice that has something to say "Do you have a spare or a donut or something?"

"A _donut_?" Head tilting, lips falling in utter confusion "...How would that help things?"

Now it's my turn to giggle, cause the perplexed look on her face is utterly priceless.

"Oh it's like a smaller kind of tire that people sometimes use instead of a spare. Like if they're already using their spare..." She looks at me, like she's impressed, and suddenly I feel kinda insecure "...or something."

"Huh..." Looking thoughtful, her eyes scan over mine, like she's giving me the once over, like she's trying to read me, "...You're smart, aren't you? Like, totally book smart."

"Oh, um, no..." My feet start drawing invisible doodles into the sidewalk, variations of my humility, "...not really."

"Nah. You are. Be proud." Said so simply from her unaffected lips, just a mere observation on her part. Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh but it's something more. It's everything more to me. And it has my voice so soft, so gracious, as I practically whisper, "Thanks."

But maybe she gets it, because her voice is just as kind, if not more so, as she replies, "No problem."

Finally, she stands, meeting me at eye level, and I almost have to step back. Because in the light of day her eyes are more than just a color, they're unreal. They're ethereal, and I briefly wonder if they're maybe what heaven looks like.

"Well I don't have either, bagels or spares or whatever. Not like it'd really matter if I did though. I wouldn't know the first thing about changing it."

Chuckling, I glance down at the street, maybe too overwhelmed to keep looking into her eyes. "They're, uh, called donuts. And yeah, I wouldn't know how to use them either."

"Donuts, right, right. See, you _are_ smart." She laughs lightly, before awkwardly turning her body halfway, facing her broken down car, "So what do you say? Wanna help a girl out?"

But I'm not really listening to her. No, my attention is set on the small of her back, where her black hoodie has risen just that tiniest bit. Just enough to expose a sliver of skin. Exposing what looks to be the beginning's of a tattoo.

I wonder what it's of. I wonder when she got it. I wonder if I'll ever see it. I wonder how I'd see it if I ever -

"It's ok if you can't, you know."

Thankfully oblivious, she breaks _that_ mildly dirty train of thought. And clearly my mind's not only in the gutter, but it's vacant from this conversation, as I mumble, "Can't what?"

There goes that innocent chuckling again, the one that contrasts the person everyone believes her to be.

"Give me a ride. I mean I called the tow truck already, and can just wait for them, it's no biggie."

I finally realize she's asking for a ride. That _she_ wants a ride from _me_ [mind out of the gutter. It has me so excited that I can't stop myself from blurting the first word that comes to mind.

"NO!" Before she can say a thing, looking completely entertained by my outburst, I quickly regain my composure, cheeks blushing a fire, "...I mean, no, I can give you a ride..." Breathe, Ash, breathe, "...it's fine."

It might be a smirk on her face, or maybe just an amused smile, but whatever it is, I like it. I like it a lot.

"Thanks, you're a life saver. Where you parked?"

"Um, just down here a little bit."

She starts walking and I follow, like it were her car we're going towards instead of mine.

"I thought I was the only one that parks on this street. It gets too crowded in the lot for me, I like my space. Which I guess you do too, if you're out here, huh?"

I feel her eyes on me, perhaps probing for what her question couldn't obtain, but I'm too busy wondering how to answer. Too busy figuring out if I actually have one, because I guess I do like my space, but how would I know otherwise? Not like there's many out there craving my time.

"Well since I was late there were no more spots left, so I had to park out here."

There we go. Nice fair, honest answer.

"Hmm..." Glancing over towards her, finding her completely contemplative and completely adorable, "...So it's _my_ lucky day then, you being late and all. If you were on time, you wouldn't have walked out onto _my_ street, and we wouldn't be walking to your car right now. In fact, I'd probably still be stranded all the way back there, all by my lonesome, waiting for some trucker named Hairy Joe, called that for more reasons than I'd ever want to know, to come fix up my car and..."

She keeps on rambling, much like she did in the art room, and while I desperately want to listen, clinging to every word she gives me, I can't hear her. I'm in some weird haze, just absorbing the fact she's walking beside me. She's actually talking to me. It's so strange the way she just keeps on talking, as if she knows me. As if she were a regular chatty Cathy. But she's not. In fact, I think I'm hearing her voice more than I've ever heard anyone outside my parent's. And while that's unbelievably pathetic, I'm kind of not caring, cause she's still babbling on and on. Speaking the most beautifully incoherent words I've ever heard.

"...So yeah, in the end, you being late pretty much saved my life. How does it feel, being a hero and all?" But before I can try and find some sort of appropriate answer to that, if there even is one, she stops, "...Man, I'm rambling, aren't I? God, I'm sorry." Her eyes train down on the ground, looking so vulnerable, "...It's strange I only do that with my friends from back home. You know, people I'm really comfortable with."

Now my head's spinning in that 'this really can't be happening' sort of way. Cause did she just say I'm someone she's comfortable with? Did she just compare me to her _friends_. Well whatever she just did, I don't have a reply. I don't have anything, because I can't fathom it all. I can't fathom any of this.

And maybe she can't either, cause we're both standing still now, just staring at each other. Looking like we're searching for something. Anything. Because what exactly _are_ you supposed to do when you've run out of words? When there's nothing left to say, but there's still something being said. Something intangible, something barely there, but still there none the less. And I know she feels it, because her eyes suddenly turn so kind. Her lips relax into a gentle smile, as she tilts her head just slightly. Tilts it in a "would you look at that" kind of way.

In a way that's almost too much.

I wish one of us would say something [mainly her, cause I've never been in this kind of situation before. And something tells me she probably has. Something screams inside me that this is nothing new to her.

But she doesn't say anything. No, she's just standing there in complete contentment. Like she's never been more comfortable. Like she can't stop that gentle smile of hers from growing into a full grin. And it's twisting my stomach. It's wrapping me between her lips. It has my eyes running away, looking to the left, breathing the heaviest sigh of relief I've ever had.

Because we're miraculously at my car, and I can't hide my satisfaction as I chirp, "We're here."

From the corner of my eye [uneasily trained on my Honda Accord, I can see her reluctant to pull away. To leave that strange staring thing we just had going on. And I wonder why I'm so eager to leave it. As a person always intent on learning more, seeing more, understanding more, I wonder why I'm suddenly so set on closing off.

But I guess she's over it, cause she's giving my car her nod of approval, as if it can see her. As if it'll nod back. Without hesitation, she starts walking for it, exclaiming a sincere, "Awesome" along the way. But I stand back for just a little while longer, watching her practically skip her way to the passenger side door. Totally marching to her own drum, one I wish I could follow, but probably never will.

Oh well.

I finally make my way over, sliding into my mediocre car, sliding right in time with her, the direct opposite of mediocrity. I find myself sitting there for a moment, finally registering how weird this day has been. Finally realizing where I am. Who I'm with. How utterly strange and out of the ordinary everything is in this moment.

And as I start the engine, sliding my chair back slightly, it only gets weirder.

"Hey! Look at that!"

Because now she's ridiculously holding her leg up between us, displaying her right foot.

But that's not what's weird.

"Nice sneakers, man!"

What's weird are the checkered vans staring back at me.  



	4. The Day

AN: I just wanted to thank Orange for giving me the heads up on my disablement of anonymous feedback! I had no clue that was disabled, so my apologies to anyone who's been trying to leave any that way, haha. Also thank you to you guys for reading and reviewing, it means mucho. I usually ramble and ramble in "an"s over on for some reason I haven't really here...but perhaps I'll start. Either way, thank you so much guys!

----------

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Somewhere, far off in the distance, an alarm is going off, but I barely hear it. It's coming closer now, ringing louder and louder, but I'm barely cognizant of it. My mind's five shades of fuzzy, still stuck in dreams of what will never be.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Eventually, those dreams release me, sending my heavy, sleep filled hand to drop down on the bedside table, searching for the off button. Searching and scanning every surface I come across, but unable to find the source of such a dreadful sound.

After hitting about a million different buttons that'll probably come back to bite me in the ass some day, I decide to get it over with, and blink my tired eyes open. Flinging my lethargic body up off that bed, brushing away all those disoriented curls from my face, bed head residing within every strand, as my hands fumble for that damn alarm.

Ah, there it is!

Finally, my dark room is draped in peace and quiet. And I waste no time in falling back into the plush covers of my bed. Ready to just relish in the tranquility of this morning. This awesome beautiful morning, where it's ok to be tired. Where it's ok to just stay in bed that little bit longer.

Because yesterday was worth the grogginess of this morning. 

A soft smile slowly creeps over my sleepy lips.

Yesterday was worth way more than that.

-----------  
__

The engine gently hums beneath us in my car, parked in Spencer's driveway. Waiting outside her massive house, the closet thing to a mansion I've ever seen. Loitering till one of us, or both of us, does something.

So I guess we're both waiting on her, cause I'm never one to do anything.

But she's just sitting there. One foot up on the seat before her, using her relaxed hands to wrap around it, holding it close to her chest. Like she's never sat in another front seat before. Like this has always been hers. And I'm ok with that.

It's strange, the crooked little smile across her face, eyes happily trained out the windshield. Just looking, not minding the time spent. It's like she might just sit here all day. Like she might just sit here, with me, forever.

And I'm beyond ok with that.

"I still forget this is my house." Her voice is so gentle as she ropes me in so deep with a simply said sentence, loaded with a thousand meanings, "...like, when I'm driving home or something, I don't know where to stop yet. I don't know when to blindly just turn the wheel. I've actually driven past it a few times, can you believe that?" She doesn't give me time to answer her hypothetical, not that I would have anyway, as her eyes go somewhere else, somewhere so far from this car, "...what a strange feeling - not knowing where home is. Not knowing in, like, my heart." A heavy beat of intense silence, the power of her words washing over us. Seeping inside two strangers, sitting so close in even closer isolation, as she coughs, "...Or something."

Now she's looking out that window to the right of her, far far away from me. And I want to bring her back, so I laugh, sincerely. "Well looks to me like it's not that bad of a place to learn as home."

Her face is still turned away from me, but from here I can see a smile forming straight across it. "So what's yours like?'"

"Nothing like yours, that's for sure." Breathes from my lips, glimpsing down at my thumbs hanging on the bottom of the steering wheel, "...but it's ok."

"I bet it's great." Her head's bowed, but I think I hear a smile inside her words and maybe a tinge of sadness, as she shuffles in her seat a little, perhaps getting comfortable, "...I would ask where it is, but I guess that would be pretty pointless. With me not even knowing where my house is and all..."

With a goofy smile on my face, I finally glance back towards her, finding her looking back at me, same smile spread across her face. It's so strangely perfect. So surreal but real at the same time, that I can't pull away. And neither can she. Once again we're content looking, seeing, knowing. And I'm mentally writing it into my memory. Singing it there. Every detail. Every spec of light that scatters across her flawless skin. Every crease and dimple beside her lips and near her eyes, as if I may have caused them. As if I've given her the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.

"Well..."

And then she did the 'well'. The 'well this has been fun, but it's time I got going' well. I hate that well. So I cut her off from it, running before she can run from me. Cause it's easier, for both of us.

"Yeah, um, well I gotta get going."

Her eyebrows are knitted, adorably, looking confused. Or maybe disappointed.

"Oh, right, sorry. You probably have somewhere to be or something and I'm just babbling babbling away about stuff that's not even making sense to me, let alone you, and so, yeah, I'm, uh, right, I'm gonna go." Before I can say anything, she's out of the car, ready to walk into her big big mansion, leaving me to sit inside my even bigger regret for being such an idiot. For running.

For letting her run.

"Hey." But then she's leaning inside the open window, quirky smile on her face, "...if you don't have somewhere to be..." One positively devious smirk covers her lips "...and I haven't completely creeped you out with my rambling..." And now she looks nothing short of shy as she glances down at my shoes on her feet "...you could come in if you want? We could do that whole binge over Dr. Phil thing."

My eyes look toward her in utter confusion, but the smile I give her couldn't be any clearer. "Binge over Dr. Phil thing?"

"Yeah. All the cool kids are doing it." She pauses, thoughtfully, measuredly, "...which means we should already be inside on my living room couch. Indulging ourselves in awesomeness."

I can't even stop the laughter spilling from my lips, because I don't think anyone but her could pull off that line. I don't think anyone's ever made me feel like I'm either of those things. Made me feel cool or awesome.

But someone has.

She has.

So I look to her, for a moment, softly biting the corner of my lip. Thinking how odd it is to be so overcome with both hesitation and excitement. Wondering if this is what sky divers feel like before they jump away from their planes.

"You coming or what?" She breaks my trance, just in time to see her heading up the pretty stone driveway ahead of us.

And I don't wait to follow her.

"Yeah, coming!"

I don't wait to jump away.

-----------

Water still trickles down over my skin from my wet hair, as I pull out what I'm going to wear. Just like every other day, ready to throw on the clothes I chose last night.

But I didn't choose any last night.

So, instead, I throw on the closet pair of jeans and frumpy t-shirt I can find. Tying my hair back in a bun, like always, and move over to slide into my red Converse. But something catches my eye. Something prevents me from slipping inside routine.

No, feeling yesterday's smile covering my face, I go for something else instead.

Living inside yesterday's memories, I shuffle into today with black and white checkered feet.

-----------

_  
Her house is even more beautiful on the inside than the outside. Artwork hanging from the walls, so tasteful and beautiful, my dad would probably have a heart attack if he were me, sitting here surrounded by them._

"Man and I thought I was dramatic. This girl is ridiculous. So her mom wears halter tops and thongs. Big whoop..." Spencer, sitting so close to me, is thoroughly engrossed with Phil, "...Sweetie, cry me a river, build a bridge, and get oooooover it. Right??"

Now she's looking at me, adorably serious, and I really don't know how to respond, so I just go with it.

"Totally."

And she looks so happy to hear it.

"See! Who needs Dr. Phil, we could so run this show for him." She sighs, as if she really were broken up about it, before rashly switching off the tv, "...Lame..." Fully turning on the couch toward me, her face fills with complete intrigue, "...So tell me about you, what's your deal? Lived here your whole life or flew into town like me? And what's it like having your dad work where you go to school?"

"Um, well..."

"And, yes, this is twenty questions."

There's that crafty smirk of hers, urging me to relax. Urging me to do so much more than that.

"Well I've lived here my whole life, and having my dad work at school..." I twist my fingers into so many make believe knots, "...it's not that bad. I mean, I'm really lucky to have him cause he's a really great dad."

"You're lying." She rests her chin in her hand, looking like her idol Dr. Phil. And I'm kinda offended.

"No I'm not. He really is a great dad."

"I don't doubt it, that's not what I was referring to."

I've never seen someone so sure of themselves, than right now. It's slightly jarring, cause she's that person, and she's so sure about me.

"Well what were you referring to then?"

She smirks.

"That it's not so bad having him teach at school."

Oh.

"It's not." But even I don't believe that. Maybe it's the way my voice cracks, as if my honesty wants out. Wants so badly to break on through. "Ok, so maybe it's kind of weird some times. You know, seeing him with my classmates like...like..." Like they were his friends instead of mine, but I can't say that. No, not to her. Not to my only possibility of a friend.

"Like what?"

But she probes and I have no idea why I let her. No, I have no idea why I'm answering her.

"I, uh, I don't know. It's like he's one of them or something. Like he fits in, and I'm just, I'm..." God this is so hard, talking about things I've never talked about, let alone allowed myself to think about. I almost want to cry as I stutter into oblivion. I almost want to take it all back, and run away from here. So far away. Where I'm safe from her Dr Phil head on her hand, or those eyes that are reaching so far inside me, farther than I want them too.

"Hey..." Her voice is unbelievably soft, but for some reason, it frightens me. Frightens me like she needs it to be gentle, because I'm so weak. So weak she might just blow me away. And I'm so afraid to look into her eyes. But I do anyway. "...You fit in, too, Ash."

Without a moment's hesitation, she blows me away. Just like that. With her head cocked to the side, no longer looking like anyone but herself, I've never felt more relieved. Because she means it.

And for one brief moment, I'm like that person so sure of themself. For one brief moment I smile, whole heartedly. Cause I believe her.

"Thanks."

She shrugs. "No need to thank me for being honest."

Once again, our words have died out but our eyes haven't let go of the conversation. Our eyes are speaking a million unidentifiable words a minute. Tension I've never known filling every space in between.

And then my ringing cell phone scares the crap out of both of us.

"Sorry" I stutter while frantically reaching inside my pants pockets, looking for my phone as if it could save us both from the thick air. Finally I find it, and I swear I'm out of breath as I answer.

I swear I'm more upset than I should be when it's my mother's concerned voice on the other end. Asking every question under the sun, just like Spencer's game of twenty questions from before.

Although, my mother's version is somehow less comforting.

"Yes, Mom, I'm fine." I practically whisper, once again embarrassed having to talk to one of my parents in front of her, "...I'm at a friends." Insert rightful motherly curiosity, because how many friends do I have? "...yes, a friend. You haven't met her." Finally, I give in, acting like the daughter I've always been, knowing it's easier this way, "I'm sorry I didn't call, I just got caught up giving her a ride home from school, and then we did the whole binge over Dr. Phil, thing..." For some reason, beyond me, I roll my eyes playfully at Spencer, like it were our own private joke, and she laughs, because I think she knows my mom is asking the same exact question I asked her not too long ago, "...come on Mom, you know the whole binge over Dr. Phil thing. All the cool kids are doing it."  


-----------

"You headin' out already?"

My mother asks over her morning coffee, sitting in our brightly lit breakfast nook.

"Yup." Packing my brown bagged lunch into my backpack at the counter, I barely glimpse back at her as I waste no time slinking away, "...I wanna get there early, since I was, you know, late yesterday."

Even though my back's to her, I can still feel her eyes boring into me, and I wonder when parents gained that quality. That superhero power of making their children feel their suspicion, no matter where we're hiding or how very small that suspicion is.

"Alright Sugar, hope you have a good day, and would you tell your dad to pick up milk on his way home tonight? Thanks, hun."

I moan internally, but chirp "Sure!" anyway, as I make my way out of the kitchen.

"Oh, and Ashely, please do call if you go somewhere after school."

Her voice calls out to me, stopping me before I can leave the house, but not because of the words she's thrown at me. Not for what they're implying or suggesting.

No it's those eyes. Those eyes that I can still feel as I walk out to my car parked on the street.

Cause even out here I can feel the suspicion in those eyes.

The suspicion that I've changed.

-----------

__

"Thank you. For having me over, and..." Heading for Spencer's front door, with her right by my side, I stutter for the appropriate words, the right ones, "...you know, everything."

Well, close enough to the right ones.

"It was my pleasure."

When I chance a look at her, to see if she knows what I mean, I find her sincerely smiling. Like she does get what I mean, and I can't help but smile back.

We stand in the open door way of her mansion, like it's so hard for us to say goodbye. Which is downright insane, considering it was only a few hours ago that we first said hello. But I don't mind the insanity. I don't mind the nonsensical. Cause we're both bathed in sunlight, inside her home, with her so close I can smell her perfume. Or her shampoo. Or her fabric softener.

Or maybe it's just her.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

She squints at me as if I were the sun, and for some reason, it blushes my cheeks.

"Yeah, definitely." We're staring again, something that's coming far too easily for us, and while I'd love to remain eyelocked with her all day, I remember something, "...Oh I almost forgot! Your drawing towel, it's in my backpack in my car, let me go grab it for you."

I'm practically ready to run to retrieve it for her, but a soft and firm hand wrapping around my arm stops me.

"Hey, no, don't worry about it. You keep it."

I'm kinda tongue tied with her hand still gently holding my arm, holding me still, holding me close to her.

"Are...are you sure?"

Slowly, she releases me, like she meant to take her time. Like she knew it'd make me feel this dizzy and lightheaded.

"Tell you what. You can keep it..." A goofy grin takes over her whole face, "...if you save me a seat in drawing..." She easily leans back into the open door way, resting against the rich wood with her arms crossed before her, looking at me so thoughtfully, "So maybe we can fit in together."

Oh. My. God.

Those words from her lips have done to my heart, what the beautiful paintings on the walls would do to my fathers. They have me gasping for something to give back to her. But all I can manage is "Sure."

But judging from the look on her face, my sure is more than enough.

-----------

I'm so nervous as I walk through the packed hallway, pulling my backpack straps tighter around my shoulders. But not for the normal reasons. I'm not wrapping myself inside them because I want to hide.

I'm wrapping myself inside them cause I've never felt more open.

Saddling up to Perspective Drawing's door, glimpsing into the tiny window, I let go of those straps. Because maybe I'm tired of hiding.

And then I smile, so wide, because sitting there, in that empty classroom, is Spencer. The one girl I've never seen arrive on time. The one girl who always strolls through this very door, without a care in the world, without a thought of the time.

That girl is inside this classroom, before anyone, sitting at our two person table. Looking just like me, with her fingers wrapped inside her hands. Looking so open.

Suddenly, she finally glimpses over, completely spotting me completely watching her. And while I'd normally look away, fearful of getting caught, striving to hide, I don't. I'm nowhere near hiding, as she suddenly waves to me. Cutely wiggling her fingers mid air.

And when she moves that hand to pat the open seat beside hers, I waste no time walking inside.

As she turns her soft smile into a wide grin, I waste no time jumping in. 


	5. Paper Cup Ignorance

The sun trickles its way through Perspective Drawing's windows, filling me with warmth, as I sit here alone. As I sit here saving the seat beside mine.

I can't help but smile as I wait.

Kids begin filtering inside, filling the class with more life, with more vibration and somehow, I'm not as warm as I once was. Maybe it's seeing my father walking in with them. Among them. Maybe it's because even he has better places to be before school starts than me. He has more of a life inside these high school walls than his teenage daughter shuffling inside them.

"Hey there Shady."

Spencer slides into her seat, casually and coolly, like usual, and suddenly I don't really care about those exclusive high school walls or the people striding inside them. I don't care about anyone outside of this person sitting next to me. Because she's using her-made-up-nickname for me. The one she penned me with the day she discovered my favorite parking place and my favorite place to eat lunch. Both coincidentally [or not so coincidentally hidden beneath blankets of trees.

"Hey."

I whisper over to her, still fazed and surprised that she sits next to me. That for the past three days she's actively sought _me_ out. That we've shared tables and lunches and laughs. I guess you can't really blame me for being taken aback by it. For being unbelievably shocked by the fact that the sun has singled me out, amongst all the other flowers. Shining on me the most.

"Ugh. I can't believe it's only Thursday. This week feels like it's lasted a year. It seriously needs to end already." Glimpsing down at my nail bitten fingers, a frown tugs at my lips. I guess she's not that fazed by it. I guess this week hasn't been the best thing to ever happen to her, "Then again..." Something shifts inside that voice of hers, like the rays of light from outside have poked her inside, softening all those hard edges, "...this week has had it's perks."

And now I'm looking nowhere but up to her, where she's pulling her sketch pad from her bag, a crafty smirk living on her face. Looking like she knows just how much her little aside has affected me. How much it _is_ affecting me.

"Yeah..." I can't help but softly reply, "...it has."

Her eyes finally leave that beloved sketch pad, and I think it's so she can stare into mine. Because once again we're getting lost in our own language. The one we've both been learning for the past four days. The one I still don't quite understand, but I'm still speaking. Somehow more fluently with each day.

"Oh hey, I got you this..." And then she obliviously breaks it, like she usually does, sliding over a paper cup, "...I made it regular since I wasn't sure how you take your coffee, but I figured if I was gonna be late getting myself one, might as well be even later getting you one too."

Somehow she makes a simple statement like that sound like the biggest compliment ever, and I graciously smile, taking a coffee made in a way I'll never understand. I don't drink the stuff, I don't know the first thing about it. But I sincerely thank her, anyway. Setting it off to the side.

We settle into our pre-class routine, both shuffling inside our bags, looking for what we need. Both shuffling inside our conversation, grasping at something to connect over.

Flicking my eyes away from my plain maroon back pack, I check out her green bag once again. Looking at all the doodles and all the messages. Inspecting all the words and letters that add up to nothing for me, as if they were written in code. Like they're written in another language, between her and someone else.

And it's _that_ revelation that piques my curiosity.

"You have a really cool bag." I try for nonchalant as I ask for her secrets. With my warm eyes, I speak our language to learn hers. But she doesn't seem to think I'm asking for much, cause she smiles back, unguarded. So I decide to dig a little more.

"What are, uh..." Suddenly I feel insecure, realizing how obvious my probing is, "...what are these?" My finger vaguely points to something I want to know so specifically. And now she's not really smiling. No, she's looking down on those drawings, as if they weren't out there in the open for all to see.

As if I've stolen her diary.

"They're nothing." She's so disregarding, flippant even, and it only makes me more curious, as she mumbles "...just some stupid drawings."

And that's the end of that. She's turned toward the front of the class, looking at my dad talking to some kids in the front of the room. Like always, taking his time to start the lesson, following his own schedule instead of the school's. It's no wonder the kids here love him.

I know I've overstepped my bounds with her, I know I've probed too much. Because this has happened before. In these first few days of our friendship, I've slowly revealed myself to her. I've talked about my cool dad and my pretty mom and our small house. I've shared my books and my favorites.

But she hasn't told me anything.

She's locked it up, and I wonder what would happen if she actually let me in once. If she burns me now, when she's hidden, I wonder what would happen if she exposed herself. If she exposed even a fraction of her light, I wonder if I'd catch on fire.

My cheeks flush as I realize how much I wouldn't mind. As I realize how much I want to just burn up in flames.

But it's not gonna happen today, not after I stoked and poked too much. So I look away from her, not even aware I was looking in the first place. Which is slightly alarming, but I'm not gonna let myself worry about that. Because once again _he's_ staring at me. Once again, he's flicking his eyes down, away from me, aware he's been caught.

Aiden Dennison.

I don't know anything about him, except he's one of _those_ snobby art kids. With his indie jeans and fitted plaid button downs. With his curly hair going every which way, as if he doesn't spend any time on it, but for all we know, he spends 30 minutes in front of a mirror everyday. Creating the perfect unkempt, uncaring, look for those kempt and caring curls.

I'm not really sure when he started watching me, maybe he always has, maybe I've only started noticing. It's not like I care, though. I know why he does it. I know it's cause he wonders what I'm doing here. What me, in my no name brand overalls, with my fumbling fingers that can't draw a line with a ruler, is doing inside this talented room. I don't belong here. I don't belong amongst the people with passion. The people know what they're doing.

The people like Spencer.

And maybe _she's_ the reason. Maybe she's the reason for his spotlight eyes. Cause ever since she's arrived, he's been watching even more. As if he can't believe _I'm_ sitting beside her. As if he can't see how someone with fingers like _her_ can stand to put up with me and mine.

Yeah, I know his thoughts and motives and I wish I could say they don't hurt me. I wish I could. But I can't. Because who am I? What did I do?

I'm nobody, I do nothing. So how can you hate me?

"Man, he's up to it again, isn't he?"

I blink, focusing on this skillful room once again, trying to become aware of this skillfull person beside me. Finding her focused on Aiden, her eyes not so stealthily trained on him.

A dumbfounded "Huh?" leaves my lips. Lacking any form of eloquence, and it seems to make her smile, cutely, at me. As if my obliviousness amuses her.

"That Aiden, kid. He's staring at you again."

But what's strange is the way that smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. The way those eyes blankly stare across the room. And now she's not really smiling either. She's something I've never really seen before. She's something I have no idea how to read.

"Yeah, I know..." I fumble, embarrassed, cause if she sees him hating me, maybe she will too, "...I don't think he likes me very much."

Laughter dribbles from her lips, almost like she's disbelieving. And I think I may have missed an eye roll in there.

"Oh, I don't think that's it."

Huh?

"What?" I ask with complete genuine confusion, cause we're no longer speaking with our eyes. We're speaking with words I truly don't understand. With words no more clear than the ones sketched into her too cool bag.

"Nothing." Her eyes falter from mine, gripping down on the table, as she brushes it off. I'm about to ask again, needing to know more. Needing to know what she was gonna say. Somehow ridiculously fearful that she might agree with 'that Aiden kid'. She might not want to sit next to me anymore.

But then she cuts me off from it, from any self doubt or further questioning, as she brightly smiles my way. "Hey what are you doing tomorrow night?"

She's eying me again, with no hesitation or avoidance, and it relaxes me once more. Happy to have her still sitting beside me. So close. And then I realize what she's asking. I understand what she's implying. She wants to hang out with _me_, this weekend, and I've never been more aware.

"Um, I'm not doing, uh, that much."

Or anything at all.

"Excellent. What do you say? Sleepover at mine? We can pretend we're twelve again. Movies and junk food and maybe some adult beverages if we truly get bored."

I _think_ I'm on impossibilities overload. I think she may have lost me at "sleepover". I've never gone to one of those, except when I was really little. Except when the popular girls _had_ to invite everyone.

"Sure."

The word leaves my lips so quietly, totally not bursting at the seams with excitement in the way that I'm bursting at the seams. And maybe she knows it, cause she's chuckling. Squinting down at me.

"Yeah? You sure about that?"

So I smile back. "Yeah." But she's still looking at me with faux skepticism, so I pipe up, bursting a little, "Yes. Yes, I'm one hundred percent sure that _that_ sounds excellent."

"Good." With one satisfied nod, she turns around, smile covering her face. So brightly. So earnestly.

And then it kind of fades slightly, like she's catching sight of something so dark. Like her rays of light have clouded over.

"That kid is such a weirdo. Seriously, he needs a hobby." She tilts her head thoughtfully, "...or a comb."

It's with that last omission I realize who she's talking about, and I can't help but laugh.

Even though it utterly confuses me.

-------------

Our dinner table is full of idle chatter and muted clanking. Just the typical Thursday night banter between my family and me. My parents are discussing their plans for the weekend. The gutters my father is going to clean. The groceries my mother is going to buy. The nothingness they assume I'm going to do.

"Ash, sweetie, I was thinking we'd look at what movies are playing tomorrow night, maybe go to one. What do you think?"

My mother looks at me as if she's just hit me with the best offer I could possibly get. And I hate to break it to her [or maybe I don't but I was already hit with the best offer ever this morning.

"Actually, I have plans."

I swear the proverbial needle on the record skips as I spurt the most amazing news of my life, through neutral lips. Continuing to look down on my salad, poking around it with my fork, as if I were afraid or something.

"Oh really? Something for school?"

I may not be looking at her, but I can see her curiosity aimed toward my father. Clearly asking him if there's something going on at the high school she forgot about. Because obviously there's nothing I could possibly be doing, if it's outside school.

And maybe it's that thought that takes away my faux neutralism, making me proudly proclaim my plans.

"Nope. It's actually with Spencer. She invited me to spend the night tomorrow."

I'm just barely containing the smile from cracking my cheeks. Somehow that offer sounds even better out loud, spoken from my lips.

"That Spencer Carlin girl?"

Something about the way my mom says her name, saying it fully and completely, does _not_ sit well with me. Like Spencer's trouble or something. Like my Mom doesn't like her, when she doesn't even know her.

I disregard the fact that _I_ barely know her.

"Yeah, Spencer. She's really nice mom, and I really like her."

There's no malice in my voice, though, because it's _Mom_. Because I love her. Because she's the best. And I know that if she met Spencer, not only would she like her, but maybe she'd like me even more. Because Spencer's so talented and pretty and strong. Just like Mom.

"I know honey. But you just met her and suddenly you're spending every day together and every word out of your mouth is Spencer this and Spencer that. And now you're sleeping over there? I don't even know this girl, let alone where she lives or who her parents are. You can't blame me for being concerned, sweetie."

Oh, yes I can.

"We don't spend every day together and I don't talk about her all the time..." I squirm a little uncomfortably, because that might not be so true, maybe I do talk about her all the time, more than I realize. But then what's so bad about that? So what, if I'm happy?

"Mom, you have nothing to be concerned over. Spencer's my friend and not only is she, like, the only person to ever really talk to me..." My voice wavers, a solitude forming inside it for what I've just confessed, "...she's also the nicest one."

A moment of sympathy and perhaps pity fills the dining room, something that usually doesn't blatantly shine through, but is always there. Always directed right at me. And tonight, right now, it's shooting into me through both my parents eyes. It's shooting so far, I almost want to cry.

And when I bravely glance at my mother, it looks like she wants to as well.

"It's fine, Christine. Spencer's a good kid." Funny how I almost forgot about my dad, how he actually knows Spencer cause he works at our school. Funny how I forgot the one good thing about him being a teacher, "...and boy can that girl draw. She's one of the best in the class. Aside from Ashley, of course."

Just like Spencer, my dad makes this ridiculous statement sweet. Makes it genuine. Makes me believe it. And I smile because of it, because of him. Thanking him with a look.

"Well now that I know she can draw..." My mother smirks at my dad, sarcasm leaking through her, sarcasm I wish I knew how to use, "...I guess it's alright if you spend the night."

"Really?" My eyes turn up in surprise, in relief, cause now this is really happening. As my mother nods back at me, with a tinge of apprehension, it's official. I'm actually going over Spencer's tomorrow. I'm actually_sleeping_ there, with her. Well, not with with her. But there with her next to me.

And now I'm drowning in embarrassment from my internal thought, as I stutter a reply. As I whisper so sweetly, drenched in graciousness.

"Thanks, Mom."

"Your welcome, Sugar."

My mother's voice is warm, coating my childhood nickname in love and care, but something sounds different about it. Something feels funny. Something feels impending. Something should be hitting me about this.

I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's the look she's giving my father, the one she thinks I can't see. Maybe it's the skepticism in her eyes, the skepticism I felt earlier in the week, that's followed me all the way to tonight. Or maybe it's the way she said Spencer's name.

Whatever it is I'm still not fully recognizing it.

And as my cell phone rings, breaking the tranquility of my Thursday family dinner, I'm not even thinking about it anymore. Because Spencer is calling.

And it takes me barely thirty seconds to excuse myself to take her call.

To seize her better offer.

To ignore my mother's eyes. 


	6. The Sleepover Quiet

I don't mind the quiet in my house. The peace. The stillness. I actually like it.

But the quiet is so different here, inside Spencer's house.

I've only been here a little while and I'm not really sure I like the quiet here.

I don't like the stillness inside this massive house. Feeling it so different at night. So far from what once impressed me. Tonight it chills me, sitting here inside her shiny kitchen. Noticing the way these colorful walls lack the brightness and richness I now know only daylight can grant them.

For the first time Spencer's mansion makes me think of that tiny little house on the corner of Beacon Street. The one with Thursday night dinner's, and Mom's laundry basket, and Dad's Neil Young albums playing from the basement while he paints.

For the fist time inside Spencer's world, I idly think back inside mine.

"Ok, what should we go with - a movie or just some good old fashioned television?"

Spencer wanders between her filled-to-the-brim kitchen cabinets that still look emptier than mine. She moves in fluid motions, giving me a full view of her long back and pretty hair, looking utterly timeless.

"Um, whatever you want." Is my predictable response, too caught up in staring at her when I know I can. When I know no one will find me or see me. Safe from all those people's eyes, especially hers. I'm still not comfortable enough to throw out the things I like or show her the things I want. Show her _who_ I want.

Because maybe I truly don't know those things yet.

"Ashley, you gotta start going with your opinions sooner or later. There's gotta be _something_ you wanna do that I don't." There's a smile inside her words, one that makes me feel safe, not foolish, as she turns around, walking the short distance from her place at the sink to my place at the island counter, taking her time with every small step, "...I mean right?"

Her smile turns into a grin and I find myself blushing. Naively, or maybe just ignorantly, unsure of why _that_ keeps happening. Why the simplest gesture, like a paper cup coffee or a dirty dish towel, can make my cheeks blush the deepest shade of red.

Slowly, she leans over the counter separating us, just slightly, as if asking permission to move into my space [that's really hers. She looks at me expectantly, awaiting my answer with fingers gently tugging at the hem of her tank top.

My stomach flips a little. I've never felt that before. It's kind of freeing and unnerving at the same time. How one little thing from her elicits so much inside me. Elicits so many 'never before's. So I try to ignore it. I try to match her experienced smirk, the one like my mothers at the dinner table. The one she thinks I can't see. And the one I wish I understood.

"Ok then, I think..." No, that's not right, that's not what Spencer's asking for, that's not what her eyes are demanding of me. She wants definition, she wasn't certainty, so I quickly fumble for a tune to fit with hers, "...No. I _want_ to watch a movie."

I can't help but smile with her pleased look. With her hands moving to splay out on the marble counter top. Its surface so clean, I can vaguely make out her reflection in the glossy stone. It makes me wonder, without realizing it, how one person can still look so beautiful while hidden in shadows. Can look so soft while mixed with such hard stone.

"That's more like it. See, I _knew_ you had it in you. Just took a little gentle prodding..." The smirk some how grows, but this one isn't like my mothers. With a sneaky stare aimed at me, this look is all Spencer's, and with this look I feel like there's even more I have to learn and understand, "...I guess since you decided on _that_, I'll choose the movie for us. How's that? Sound fair?"

Switching her weight from foot to foot, her mouth hangs open crookedly, maybe suggestively, but of course, I'm nowhere near picking up on it.

"Sounds perfect." I chirp, so innocently, so childlike, as if I'm that one kid on the playground that doesn't get the joke. That doesn't understand there is no Santa. There's only your parents hiding in the night.

One perfectly sculpted eyebrow raises toward me [so different from my unshaped ones as if she's asking something else. As if this is a challenge. And I finally wonder if this whole night _is_ a challenge. Because I've barely been here twenty minutes, and I already feel breathless. I feel heady.

And with Spencer hesitating a moment, right there in front of me, no longer smirking or displaying years of experience, only looking straight ahead as if she were testing herself [instead of me, I feel flushed.

With her barely whispered, "Yeah. It does."

I feel myself on fire.

-----------------

Spencer's room is nothing like I expected. Is nothing like the green canvas messenger bag, or the expressive scenes she doodles daily, even outside of class. Spencer's room looks more like those pages in the back of her sketch pad. The ones waiting to be touched. The ones waiting for her to kiss with her talent, with her vision, with her life.

These glaringly white walls, without a touch of paint, or a single framed photo, or a pinned ribbon award, are so vast. So sad that I have to wonder whose room we're _really_ sitting in. I might even wonder if we had somehow stepped inside mine, but even my room has more flare than this.

"Man, this is what sucks about moving. Things lost in the transition. I could've _sworn_ I had Forrest Gump up here. I mean, come on, it's Forrest...Forrest Gump!"

Spencer, knelt before the largest DVD collection I've ever seen, tilts her head just a smidgen, slighter than normal, while laughing wholeheartedly at what must be a movie reference. A movie reference that really doesn't reach me.

I've never seen Forrest Gump.

"Well that's ok. We can watch something else." I try and placate her, because she truly seems upset by this, while I really don't mind. A movie's just a means for me, a means for us to sit close. For us to share something

For us to do anything. Together.

But Spencer, with her long back and pretty hair still facing me, only sighs. She seems completely disappointed.

"I _know_. But...it's just that you haven't seen it and I really really want you to see it. With me. It's so good. I swear I cry every time." I almost miss that 'with me', as she looks over her shoulder, looking so beautiful as she stares at me perched uncomfortably [and not so beautifully on the corner of her bed, "...I'm such a movie sap. It's totally ridiculous..." Her eyes turn shy, the corner of her bottom lip now fitted between her teeth, "...bet you think I'm a big loser now, huh?"

I almost scoff at the impossibility of that notion, but somehow manage to uphold my calm and quiet demeanor.

"No..." My fingers tie together, suddenly feeling far too shy for these passive [but so not passive words, "...no, I don't think that at all."

She laughs, but not in a funny way. She laughs, surprised, like she never expected an answer. Like maybe no one's ever answered her questions, even when they're not hypothetical.

"Well..." Suddenly breaking _that_ unclear moment, she picks herself up from the carpeted floor, strolling over to her bed, "...I know you said you wanted to watch a movie, but would you mind if just watched TV instead? Since we can't watch Forrest Gump, I don't wanna watch any other movie." Sitting back against her headboard, so naturally, she makes me look even more awkward all the way over here on the edge of her huge bed, "...I know, I know, I'm such a baby, but I figure it's not _that_ bad if I realize it, right?"

I don't even get her joke, or her hypothetical, or whatever she's throwing out at me. Because we're both sitting here on her bed, in a quiet room, with nothing and no one surrounding us. And I'm just nodding my head yes [or maybe no while figuring out what I should do. Where I should sit. Where I should put my amazingly pathetic body that doesn't know anything about proper friends-on-a-bed etiquette. I've never been in this position before, faced with this decision.

And then she helps me out.

"You can sit back here with me, you know..." She pauses, with intent, practically shouting at me to look to her, so I do, with ridiculous intimidation, "...I thought I already told you I won't bite."

Now I know there's something suggestive in those words. I _know_ it. I'm not that dense. Or maybe I am, because I don't know what to say in return. I have nothing and I'm still so fearful as I crawl toward the head of her bed. Feeling so damn foolish for no reason at all as my frumpy jeans glide across her bare legs. Her long tan legs that are not really hidden beneath a short denim skirt.

Suddenly, I feel very self conscious for everything I am.

I really wish that'd go away. I wish so much. And maybe I don't have to wish that much. Maybe it'll start to diminish right here, right now. Because as I settle into a position, getting used to someone else's bed [the first I've ever sat on she smiles at me, so sweetly, like she couldn't be happier with me beside her.

"Hey there."

I'm caught off guard as she whispers into the thickening air. Her eyes looking somewhat hooded, as they glance down on me. It makes me realize just how _close_ we are. It makes me wonder what I'm supposed to say in return, as I glance, surreptitiously, to her side of the bed, suddenly feeling insecure. Like she didn't just call to me. Like I'm not entitled to looking or calling back.

"Hi."

My whispered reply doesn't sound nearly as challenging, or suggestive, or even sweet. Mine just sounds dumb. Shining all my inexperience and innocence so brightly. I can't really look at her with _those_ colors out there.

"It's better back here, isn't it?"

But she won't let me drown in those mixing colors, she won't let me lose myself in their mud. Those blue eyes have never looked more open, or friendly, like a strong hand reaching out for me to climb a tall tall ladder. Suddenly, I've never felt more comfortable.

"It is."

We smile at one another, happy for the clarification. Maybe even happy for something else. What it is, I have no clue, but I _know_ I'm happy to have it.

She faces straight ahead again, staring at that huge TV of hers. Giving it the smile that was just aimed at me. The one that seemed so much warmer back then.

"So what do you usually do on a Friday night?" Absently flicking through channel after channel, with what looks like no hopes of ever stopping, she casually asks, and it kind of reminds me of when I asked about her bag. When I wanted to know so much more than what I was asking.

I don't know how to answer this. It's pretty much a no win situation. I can either tell the truth and look like the biggest loser [so much bigger than her adorable movie crying ways, or lie and look like the worst liar [and still a loser for lying in the first place.

I decide looking like a loser is better than looking like a liar. Looking like something I'm not.

"Um, well, uh, my mom and I...we usually watch Law and Order: SVU..." Surprisingly, she doesn't laugh or mock me for spending such a cool night with my mother. She doesn't say anything, and it only spurs my ramble on, mumbling till my lips are dry, "...We kinda do this dinner thing, I get to choose the restaurant. Sometimes we'll go see a movie after, if there's a good one playing. But most times we watch SVU, since there's always a marathon on. And even though I've seen practically every episode twice, I still can't not watch. I'm not really sure why. But my mom really loves Elliott, which I so don't get because the guy is such a psycho. If there's anyone to like on that show it's -"

"Olivia!"

I don't even realize we've both exclaimed in unison, until I'm looking at her, straight on, no longer fearful or afraid. At least for now, I'm nothing but happy and ecstatic. Because we agree on something. Something so small and insignificant, but means so much to me.

"She's the only reason I ever watch that show." Spencer's lips remain parted after she says this, once again leaving them to hang open, like there's more she wants to say or more she wants to do, "...that sounds really nice, though. What you and your mom do."

With the softest blue eyes I've ever seen, she keeps those pink lips open and turned up at the corners, smilingly so brightly at me. Giving these colorful walls the life and love they're missing without daylight. Giving even more than the daylight.

"Yeah, it is." I'm not even sure what we're really talking about anymore, as I get caught up in that smile and those eyes and that pretty hair and those long legs.

I'm so caught up that I don't notice her changing the channel or hear the opening theme to SVU going off so far in the distance. The first time I've heard it outside that quiet house on the corner of my childhood. Noting how different it sounds here, next to Spencer. With her looking at me, with me looking at her, both of us just smiling. So innocently, I still believe we're not really doing anything. So quietly, I still believe we're not really saying anything.

"What's she like?"

I want to answer right away, telling her everything about my mom, about my only friend, about the beautiful and strong woman I wish to be someday. But Spencer's eyes are still dead set on me, holding my words, maybe even holding the secrets I haven't shared yet. With anyone. Those eyes make me so distanced, causing my question to slide out between one of my breaths, "Who?"

And she giggles, almost knowingly, "Your mom?"

"Oh my mom!" I snap out of it like a screen door slamming shut, as I quickly try to calm myself down, "...she's um..." I try to decide once again how honest I want to be, but it's really not much of a decision, because how could it be when it comes to my Mom? "...she's great." Head bowed, shyness flooding through me, "...she's amazing actually."

"She sounds like it. That's really awesome..." Spencer's eyes aren't on me anymore, I can _just_ see them vaguely from the corner of mine, the way they're focused on the remote. The way her fingers draw patterns over and over the black plastic, just like the patterns she draws inside her notebooks and sketch pads, "...What does she do?"

For some reason, I'm kind of confused. And then I realize what she's asking and how badly I have to stop sliding into these strange Spencer reveries.

"She actually works at the school, as a guidance counselor."

I'm already laughing, knowing just what Spencer's gonna say. Immensely happy I know anything about Spencer.

"Man, you got the whole Fam inside that joint, huh??" Her body turns toward mine suddenly, giving me all of her attention as she smiles with sympathy, and it kind of confuses me, why do I need sympathy? "...that must be hard. Having both your parents work where you go to school."

She whispers that last bit, perhaps afraid to speak her opinion. Maybe afraid to speak my truths. And then I get the sympathy, because whether she knows it or not, whether _I_ know it or not, she's speaking both.

But I only answer with what I _believe_ to be the truth. "I guess, but it's not like she's _my_ counselor, and I barely see her, so it's not that big of a deal."

"Yeah, that's true."

Somehow, I don't think that's all she has to say on the matter. But we both let it slide.

"So what about yours? What's she like?" It's shaky ground, asking about her life, asking about her blank walls and covered messenger bags, but I want to know so badly.

"Oh..." There go those eyes again, looking away from me, anywhere but me, "...she's not that bad." A soft smile sits on her lips, making me feel so much better as she looks so reflective, "...you know, when she's around."

Of course my interest has piqued ten fold with that confession. But I play it cool, so cool, so afraid of chilling her away from me.

"She's a surgeon right?"

"Yeah..." She nods solemnly, appearing to be internally debating something, "...I try not to get mad at her, for not being here that much or whatever. I mean that really wouldn't be that fair of me, you know? How could I ever be mad when she's out there saving people. When she's constantly giving _other_ kids more time with _their_ mothers." Suddenly she looks just like that girl who sat in my car a few days ago. The one who didn't know where home was, "...I guess it's just hard sometimes, compromising something like that. Compromising family."

I don't really know what that's like. Or maybe I do. Thinking of my father, I can't help but feel some sort of connection with her, making me softly reply, "I think I know what you mean."

And she looks like she feels _that_ connection too, as she turns toward me once again.

"Yeah?"

Her eyes are so childlike, so vulnerable, reflecting mine for once .

"Yeah."

I whisper into the silent air, SVU doing nothing to interrupt our moment. Doing nothing to lift our locked-on-each-other-eyes. Just like so many other times. Not even feeling the weirdness of it anymore, not even speculating why words and looks come so easily between us.

"Ashley?"

It's so strange how something just shifted inside her voice while saying my name. Making it sound so utterly different than before. Making it sound even more beautiful and raspy and special. But that's not even it. This time, as she rasps my name, it doesn't only sound like it's never been said before, it sounds like it was only meant for her. Like my name was just waiting to be whispered inside her broken voice.

I can't help but gulp. Feeling a swallow sticking inside my throat, making my voice so hoarse, and squeaky as I whisper, "Yeah?"

Her eyes flick between my lips and my cheeks, like _she's_ too afraid to pierce my brown with her blue. 

"I, um," I swear her face is moving closer to mine, or maybe it's mine moving closer to hers, "...I just..."

"Spence, you in here?!"

Suddenly there's a knock on the door, sending me to almost fall off the bed, so disoriented and lost within myself. But Spencer remains just where she is. Almost unaffected. I can't say it doesn't confuse me, or maybe even hurt me. Just the tiniest bit.

"Yeah, Glen, I'm in here."

Her brother wastes no time bursting through the door, and when he does, he immediately turns around. A strange hand held over his eyes.

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry. God, I didn't know that there was anyone here, that you guys were up here. I'm uh, I didn't..."

Before Glen can weirdly mutter into oblivion, Spencer cuts him off, eying me carefully, strangely, doing with her eyes, what Glen does with his words, "Glen, stop being an idiot. It's fine. You can turn around."

With unfounded trepidation, Glen faces us once more, with eyes that remain on Spencer or the TV, or anywhere that's not me. And I can't say _that_ doesn't hurt me. Even if it's just the littlest tiniest bit.

"You know Ashley, right?" But then Spencer says that so sweetly, almost proudly, and all I can feel is happy.

"Oh yeah, sure, it's good to see you, Ashley."

"You too."

I would've been more outgoing if he actually looked at me. But his eyes are still so far from mine, like he's afraid of me, or allergic even, and it only has me baffled now. So beyond baffled. And even more curious.

"So what do you want?"

Glen's hand compulsively turns the door knob, busying himself from his obvious discomfort, "I'm going to some party that the team's throwing, and I just wanted to see if you wanted to come..." Finally those sketchy eyes glimpse at me for the shortest second ever, "...if you both wanted to come."

I feel Spencer looking to me for a moment, like she might ask what I want to do, before she answers for us both, "Nah, I think we're just gonna hang here, thanks though."

"Ok cool. ..." Glen looks completely unsurprised [and maybe relieved by her answer, "...Well I guess I'll see you in the morning. If mom calls just tell her I'll talk to her tomorrow."

"Glen. Mom's away at a conference in New York. She's not gonna be calling or even thinking of home till Sunday when she gets back. So I _think_ you're good."

She smirks, clearly playing with him, but I'm kinda lost on it all. Her mom's not gonna be here? At all? For the whole night? And now Glen's leaving, meaning it's really going to just be the two of us, alone, in this big giant bed. With a river of space and tension between us.

"Anyway, I'll leave you guys alone or whatever..." Glen, somehow looking even more uncomfortable than when he first barged in, breaks my humiliating train of thought, "...yeah, ok, I'm leaving. Bye."

And then he's gone, shutting the door on us and our world. Confining the two of us inside it, bringing me back to the moment Glen interrupted. To Spencer's unasked questions and faces inching closer and eyes looking down on lips.

It has me seriously thinking about a huge empty house filled with just the two of us.

"So, uh, your mom's away?"

I bite my lip for asking such an obvious question, for asking exactly what's tainted my thoughts. But she doesn't seem to be stuck inside our interrupted moment or our rosy cheeks or even notices the depth below the surface of my words. She's just getting more comfortable, sliding her lithe body further down the bed, only making me more uncomfortable. But uncomfortable in a good way. In the way that makes my cheeks even rosier.

"Yup." Simply stated, with not a hint of blushing, she leans her head to the side, closer to me, and I _almost_ reach my hand out to do something I'm unsure of, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's not allowed. Biting her lip, she keeps her eyes with Olivia and Elliott, hot on just another case, "...you know, we can go to that party if you want. It's cool if that's what you want to do."

I have to contain myself from yelping my affirmation. From making sure she knows that there's probably nowhere else in this world I'd rather be. That I couldn't be happier sitting awkwardly on this bed next to her, lying there so comfortably.

"No, no, I, um..." I have to see her as I reassure her, glimpsing down at where her body's just a fraction of an inch away from mine, with fingers idly running across her waist, "...I like it here..." Taking a deep frightening breath, leaning over that plane's edge, "...with you..." Exhaling after leaping, I pointlessly backtrack just the tiniest bit, "...you know, just watching tv."

A soft smile tugs at her lips, as if they don't want to pull too much. With eyes glued on the television, as if they don't want to pry too much. As if she needs to keep herself from giving everything away. From giving it all to me.

But that resolve is breaking, she's breaking, cause she can't stop those eyes from finally glimpsing over at me. She can't stop that smile from sincerely whispering, "Yeah, me too."

She can't stop herself from painting these blank walls so bright.

From painting me brighter than ever before.

And suddenly I don't remember anything about the peace or the stillness on the corner of Beacon Street. 


	7. Hard Shirts, Soft Hips

Water from Spencer's bathroom sink trickles from behind the closed door, and I hear it with relief. Knowing I still have time to privately change here in the darkest corner of her bedroom. Praying I can get this shirt over my head before she comes back, because her seeing me without an article of clothing, no matter which article, wouldn't be good.

For a girl who hides herself the best she can inside the locker room, that would be my worst nightmare.

I breathe a thankful sigh as I hear the water still going strong, hurriedly throwing on an over sized t-shirt. Severely relieved to already be inside my silly pajama bottoms and covered by a massive shirt.

Finally inspecting myself, making sure everything is something close to perfect for Spencer's eyes, I realize everything is not close to perfect. Not even close, and not just because I sadly see my shirt is inside out. Perfection could never come that easily for me and a reversed t-shirt really shouldn't make a difference. A shirt for bed is a shirt for bed, no matter which way it's fitted on a body.

But, somehow, it _does_ makes a difference.

A **big** difference. Because this isn't just any body and this isn't just any night of sleeping. This is my body, sleeping in a room with Spencer's, and it has to be the best I can do.

So with the water still consistently flowing from behind that thankfully closed door, I blow a frustrated sigh from my lips and falter to eradicate the situation. I rush to rip the hem over my head, feeling my heartbeat speed up, when suddenly I find myself stuck.

I terribly find myself trapped between my shirt sleeves, wrapped around my elbows, and I think you know where this is going.

With arms extended above my head, I think you know the water just stopped trickling.

And I think you know that the fortunately closed door is now unfortunately opening. Leaving my never before seen midriff exposed for the world to see, and maybe it's not the world that's seeing it, but it is _her_. And _you_ and _I_ both know that's probably scarier than the world.

"Oh Jeez, I'm so sorry!" Spencer says, mournfully and hurriedly [just like my dressing routine and I'm praying she's turned around. I'm praying her hands are covering her eyes, much like Glen's hands covered him earlier in the night. Time seems to crawl by as I frantically shuffle around the room, dying to extricate myself from such embarrassing confines. Horribly fumbling for a way to remove myself from my worst nightmare.

"It's...it's ok." 

Pathetically dribbles from my trapped lips, but it's so _not_ ok. It's the opposite of everything ok. Because I'm still twirling in ridiculous circles over her carpet, burning my mortified trail into the soft threads for her to forever see. For her to forever remember that one girl she once knew. The one with the thick glasses and ratty hair, who didn't know how to drink coffee.

Who fought a pathetic battle with her pajamas.

"Do you need any help?"

Even though her voice is soft and reassuring, it still sounds too close for comfort. It still makes me feel like I'm five years old again with my babysitter. And it's funny, in a sad way, that while I can't see her, I know she's right there, watching me. I know she's noticing my predicament, but at the same time hardly noticing it. Because how can she? She has no idea the sight before her has never been seen by anyone. And sure it's a pale and pitiful sight, but it's still mine all the same. It's still sacred.

It's still not ready for her to see.

"No, no I got it." Muffled and croaked from my distraught lips, so flushed and fumbled. Ignoring the fact that if I just stopped for a moment, if I only took a breath, I'd find a way out of this sea of a t-shirt and things would be ok.

But even if that did happen, things wouldn't be ok. Because after a night of warm smiles, deep eyes, and close bodies slowly reaching comfort, things just instantly nose dived into discomfort.

And then it all stops.

Suddenly, I feel myself turned around. Suddenly, two hands steady my hips, delicately holding me still. Timidly touching my bare skin, burning a trail, _her_ trail, deep inside me to forever feel. For me to forever remember that one girl with the blue eyes and the long hair and the first time she touched me. How _she_ was the first one to ever touch me.

Before I can break away from that first touch, overdosing on such a first time, she solidly, but softly, keeps me still. Keeps me _right_ with her. I'm about to speak in protest, when she sweetly whispers "it's ok", like she were right on top of me, like she would never ever let anything bad happen to me. "Here, just, uh, let me..." And then her hands are delicately turning my arms, moving my body where ever it needs to go. Taking slow seconds to fix the situation, quickly waking me from my worst nightmare. Taking her time in touching and twisting me.

Instantly turning _me_ inside out.

And as my breath breathes more and more shallow, as my heart thumps harder and harder, I don't mind the time taken. I don't mind the touches teasing, burning, and scarring. Because I'm drowning in these first times, falling so far below the surface, I don't think I'll ever resurface.

I don't think I'll ever want to.

Maybe she has no clue she's doing it, as the back of her hand "accidentally" wisps along my side. Maybe she doesn't understand how deep the tips of her fingers move inside me, as they brush down my back, pulling my shirt where it's supposed to be.

But what's really terrifying and exhilarating?

Maybe she does.

Not so much embarrassed anymore, but still incredibly flushed [for so many other reasons, I keep my face down on the ground. Graciously, but oh so quietly, thanking her. Feeling so silly and too afraid to look into those blue eyes. Too hesitant to find them laughing at me, scorning me for being such a fool.

"My pleasure."

Another set of questionable words fall from her lips, finally bringing my eyes back to hers, finding her doing neither. She's not laughing or scorning. She's only standing there, closer than I imagined. Closer than we've ever been. So close I still feel those fingers haunting my chilled skin. So close, I can see her crooked smile and her dark eyes. So dark, like she were just drowning too. Like she still hasn't come up for air.

And maybe I haven't either, because suddenly it's so hard to find words to speak with, merely breathing a "thank you" her way.

She giggles, so giddily, like a little girl, "You already said that." And then there's nothing childish about the way she looks, with her lip quirked to match her eyebrow, as she continues, softer and raspier than I've ever heard, "...and it's still my pleasure."

Suddenly I realize why I still feel her hot touch, because her hot hands are still on my goose bumped body. Still holding my hips, keeping me still. Keeping me close.

"Oh." Is the best I can come up with, as she keeps smiling at me, and I _swear_ I feel her fingers moving. Just the tiniest teeniest bit. I swear I feel them giving my hips a squeeze. Just the gentlest pinch.

And then she lets me go.

"So I'm thinking I'll take the floor, and you can have the bed. That work for you?"

She's no longer near me as she walks across the room. Leaving me alone in my dark corner that feels even darker now, and I really have no clue what she's asking because I have no clue what _just_ happened. I'm still lost in too big t-shirts and soft hands on hard hips.

"Yeah, that, uh, sounds fine."

And even though I still don't know what the hell I'm agreeing to, I'm still smiling. Still smiling like an idiot, and it's ok.

Because I still feel lost inside _my_ too big t-shirt, remembering _her_ soft hands on _my_ hard hips.

-------------

Spencer's room is so dark, hardly a sliver of light from the moon shining through the windows. Somehow piercing straight across her world of a bed that I'm sleeping on. Well, pretending to sleep on. I think I've tossed and turned roughly twenty times in the short thirty minutes I've been lying here, and I don't think there's much hope of ever stopping. I just can't get outside of my head. Outside of this night. Outside of her eyes, and her lips, and her fingers, and the way they skimmed across my virgin skin.

Blushing a fire, I begin to realize I'm seriously not ready for anything I could possibly want from her. Because just those innocent thoughts have me turning into a puddle. Have me turning into something I've never been. It's scary, and I can't even think of how scary it could be with her. With anyone.

But mostly with her.

I bury my face further into her soft pillows, smelling traces of her shampoo mixed in with traces of _her_. Just her. And now I feel that blush spreading.

I'm absolutely not ready for anything that might involve this bed with Spencer and me inside it.

"Ash?"

Her clear voice fills the room, sending my eyes to open wide. Hearing my heart thump so loud in my ears. Finding myself briefly worrying if I was thinking out loud before. Thinking my little girl thoughts out into this big girl room.

"Yeah?" Barely croaks from my nervous lips.

"So you're not sleeping either, huh?" Her voice is so soft, whispering even, like she's afraid she might wake me up.

"Yeah, no, I can't fall asleep."

And it's strange, cause I'm speaking the same exact way. With those same unfounded fears.

"You mind if I come up there?" An appropriate pause fills her crazy question, the one that has my mouth gaping, desperately searching for a way to say yes and no at the same time, "...I just hate talking to someone when I can't see their face."

And then she's moving up to the bed, without even waiting for me to reply. Or maybe she didn't need to wait, cause maybe I gave it to her. Maybe my brain finally took action and spoke without including me. Spoke with my heart before I could disagree with my head.

The lack of light paired with the absence of my glasses, makes it near impossible to see her fuzzy and exaggerated form shuffling toward me. I find myself pushing further across the bed. Needing to move as far away as I can, even though there's already more than enough room for her.

I still can't really see her as she slides into bed. I only feel her there, so beyond close, that it makes me wonder if I'm imagining it. Makes me wonder if maybe I did fall asleep between those toss and turns. But then I feel the light, too bright to be anything but real, and I know this really _is_ happening. Feeling the light of the moon shining on me, only me, I find _everything_ slightly ironic. How the moon chooses me over her.

And then I just find it unfair. How the moon only allows _her_ to see _me_, instead of the other way around.

After a few seconds of ruffling and shuffling, she finds a comfortable place on her bed. Somehow, finding that place to be a place closer to me. Because through the dark, through the thickening silence, I swear I feel her beside me. Almost on top of me. I feel her right there.

The silence stretches on and on. So long, that it's stretching thin, threatening to break. And then she breaks it, like she always does. Like I always expect her to.

"Wow..." Breathes from her lips, and I'm not really sure who she's talking to, "...you look so..." I hear her swallow, incredibly surprised I could even hear something like that, "...I mean, you look different with your hair down and without your glasses."

Lying here in the light, while she's hidden in the shadows, I might feel insecure with what she's just said. I might try turning away, ready to hide in her shadows. But for some reason I'm not. Lying here right before her, out in the open, I only smile. Because I know that's _not_ what she was gonna say. I know she swallowed those words before they could be given to me.

So I smile as I try giving her something back. "Yeah, my mom's always asking if I want to try contacts, and sometimes I think maybe I should-"

"No, don't." I'm taken back by her tone, by the way she says it like she needs me to listen. Really needs me to listen, so I do, "...Don't get contacts. I mean, get them if you want to. But don't do something just cause your mom asks you to. Don't do something because people think it's what you should do. You know what I mean?"

I've never heard anyone say anything like that to me. I've never ever once thought about not doing something my mom suggests. Never wanting to _not_ do something she wants, always wanting to please her. But for some reason, I still shake my head, knowing she sees it and needing her to believe it, as I softly reply, "Yeah. Ok."

"Good..." Even though she's one blurred patch of black, I know she's nodding, "...plus, I think you look cute in your glasses."

Feeling a fire stoked somewhere within myself. Somewhere so dark, so untouched, that I almost want to cry. I'm so not ready for any of this, even if it_is_ innocent. Even if it _is_ just two friends sharing a bed

But something is starting to tell me _that_ is not what _this_ is.

And that something is terrifying me.

That something is freeing me.

"Ash..." Spencer's voice teeters, like she were the one leaning over the edge for once, ready to leap, "...you feel it, right?"

The question is so unbelievably quiet, almost like she were afraid to put it out there. Like she just wasn't quick enough to swallow it this time, and I kind of wish she had been quick enough. Cause I have no clue what she's asking.

Or...maybe I do.

"What do you mean?"

Again, she takes another deep breath. So deep I think she might have stolen one from me as well.

"Everything. You feel it, don't you?"

"I..." Her body somehow moves closer to mine, her bare leg barely touching my covered one but I still feel it. Oh how I feel it, making it nearly impossible to speak, "...I'm not sure."

"Ok..." She sighs. But not in a defeated or disappointed way. No, the breath leaving her lips, somehow draping all over me, only feels comforting. Only feels like a thick warm blanket wrapping around me, keeping me safe, "...if you ever do feel it, and you are sure, you can tell me. You know that, right?"

At this point, I'm absolutely refusing to understand what she's saying, cause a big part hidden inside myself knows _exactly_ what she's saying. So I give her the only thing I can.

"Ok."

I give her my word.

"Ok."

And she gives me hers. Letting them both sit out there, mingling and mixing together. Doing everything I can't. Everything I'm not ready for.

"I think I can fall asleep now." Her voice is so smooth, relaxed, as she breaks our mixing words. Our mixing truths and confessions, "...would you mind if I stayed up here, though, with you? I think it's the only place I'll fall asleep."

For once, I think I hear what her words are _supposed_ to mean, instead of what they're supposedly saying. And I'm not sure whether I want to run away or hug her close. Whether I want to say the words or swallow them whole.

"Yeah, sure..." Biting a lip between my teeth, trying so hard to keep the words down, trying so hard to keep everything down. But it's useless. Those words don't belong inside me.

"...I, um, think it's the only way I'll fall asleep too."

Those words belong inside her. 


	8. The In and Out

AN :: Just wanted to pop in and thank you guys for your feedback. It means so much and you guys pretty much rock hard core for it. So, yeah, thanky:)

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_Rays of light sprinkle over me, gently poking till I open my eyes. Till I blink myself awake. And when I finally do, I find the source of such soft prodding having nothing to do with the sun. Those careful wisps of warmth belong to only Spencer and the delicate hand she has lightly wrapped around mine._

_Waking me more than any sun._

_"Morning." Suddenly her voice rasps right beside me, right before me, so close I can feel her breath. I swear I feel it. Lying face to face with those loosely linked hands drawn between us, she smiles at me, eyes squinting adorably, "...sorry."_

_And then her hand's back under the covers, far away from mine. Leaving it cold and alone in the light of the new day. Leaving it to miss its new friend now tucked away._

_"It's ok..." I whisper, bravely, cause it's the first time I'm letting her know the truth. It's the first time I'm letting her know I feel it, in my own hidden little way. And it's the first time my whispered greeting doesn't sound dumb or foolish, "...I didn't mind."_

_It's the first time it sounds sweet and suggestive and natural._

_Her eyes are still slightly shut, like she's squinting out the sleep or maybe her disbelief, as a tiny little yawn pushes through her words, "How'd you sleep?"_

_I keep my eyes with her for a beat longer, for a beat too long, just scanning over her sun kissed skin. Catching those minuscule-barely-there freckles covering her rosy cheeks._

_"Perfectly."_

_I swear she lights up from my confession, from my truths seeping out there for us to both feel. For us to sink into, feeling the space between us decreasing._

_"Yeah?"_

_I nod, assuredly._

_"Yeah."_

_And she smiles, so brightly. Brighter than any sun._

_"Me too..." She bites her lip just like I've done so many times with her, so many times to keep from speaking, "...I think it's cause you're here."_

_My heart stops beating, missing a beat or two, just suspended somewhere in my chest. Waiting for the sunlight to find it. Waiting for it to wake me. Waiting for real life to shine back inside me, cause this surely can't be it. Cause those spoken words can't possibly be a figment of her imagination, they must be a figment of mine._

_"Maybe we can do it more often?"_

_But she's still here and she's still smiling and still stopping my heart with words like that. Letting me know I'm more awake than I've probably ever been._

_"Um..." However, even at my most alert, I'm still mumbling and fumbling away into a ridiculous stupor, "...yeah...", with her eyes and the sun and her smile still hitting me so hard and so deep, I find some coherency, just enough of it to piece together something closer to how I feel, "...I mean I think that'd be nice."_

_"Yeah?"_

_I'm having slight deja vu. Seeing a smiling reflection of her from earlier. Seeing her lips wrapping around such a fragile word that's asking for reassurance. I'm seeing it all before I'm reflecting myself right back, giving her my promises with one word wrapped between **my** lips._

_"Yeah."_

_Her smile quirks to the left, shifting and gearing, like a car prepping for a steep hill, "Maybe we could, I don't know, do it again tonight..." She blinks, eyes furtively looking between us for just a second, bracing herself with a deep breath, before she sets her hopeful sights back on me, setting them with her hopefully bright and blue eyes, "...I mean if you're free."_

_I feel a gulp lodge itself in my throat, feeling myself down shifting, gears loosening and decreasing. I hate dashing any hopes, let alone hopes as blue as hers. But I have to. I have to and I hate it so I do it quickly. Crushing my fragile one word promise with a two word sledgehammer._

_"I can't."_

_I swear she shuffles back from me, maybe just a fraction, maybe just a mile. Maybe just enough to shower my singled out body in more sunlight. Somehow cooling me with its rays instead of providing me with the warmth they promise._

_"That's cool, no biggie."_

_With one breath, she rolls onto her back. Eyes no longer near mine as they fall from the ceiling to the tv to her fingers on her stomach. Watching the way they pick at nothing between them. And I'm watching the way they draw my body to hers, sliding a tiny inch closer to her._

_"I really want to, though."_

_But she won't look at me, and to say I'm confused is an understatement. What happened to hands over hands, and suggestive smiles, and sharing beds to see each others faces? What happened to drawing towels, and paper cups, and whisperings of doing what you want instead of what others want?_

_"Ashley, forget it. It's really not a big deal."_

_Oh, but it **is** a big deal. Someone wanting anything from me, let alone more of it, is the biggest deal ever, and I'm not gonna let her think otherwise. No, I'm not gonna let **her** take **that** away from me._

_"It is a big deal..." My soft voice mutters my big truths, bigger than any space that could come between us on this massive bed, and I hope she hears me, I hope she hears my murmurings of how much I really **do** feel it, "...It's a big deal to me, Spencer." Even though my eyes are staring at her antsy fingers sitting so impatiently on her waist, I know she's looking at me once more because those shifting fingers are now unmoving, patiently stilled on top of her stomach, "I...I really like spending time with you, Spencer. Actually, I love it in all honesty. And it's strange, because we've barely known each other a week, but I think..." Deep, deep, deep breath, "...I think you might know me better than anyone."_

_I let the proper amount of silence take hold after such a bold statement, even bolder because I'm the one who's said it, and through the silence, she takes a deep breath. Takes it like it'll give her the appropriate words to respond with, but I won't let her. For some reason, I'm not going to let her take **these** words from me. I'm not gonna let her stop me from spewing so many secrets that shouldn't be shared. Because she's not ready for them._

_And neither am I._

_But there I go, regardless. Spewing and spilling and permanently staining us both with such secret truths._

_"Sometimes I wish the day didn't end with you and sometimes I wish I didn't have to waste time sleeping, just wasting so many minutes on tossing and turning..." Eyes still trained at the crisp morning light shining through the windows, displaying specs of dust I can't see, but I know are swirling in the air, "But most of all, I wish that we could relive last night tonight because it was probably the closet thing to the best night of my life..." I shake my head, finally understanding what I'm doing. Understanding the consequences of my endless word dribble, and finally feeling very self conscious because of it, needing to cover up my vulnerability like the thick blanket covering our bodies, "...but I can't because I promised my mom we'd do dinner since I couldn't last night."_

_My eyes are almost closed in fearful anticipation. Just waiting for her to cough uncomfortably or ramble her way into another topic. A safer topic. Just waiting for her to do anything that proves she's running. Running from me and my words and my vulnerability._

_"It was one of the best of night's of my life too."_

_But she isn't running. She's not going anywhere but closer to me, and I'm finally looking at her again. Nowhere but **her** and those crystal eyes, wishing for a second I **did** have contacts just so I could see them. See how blue they truly are in this light. See how they stare into me, with nothing but sincerity. So much sincerity that even without my glasses, I see it and I feel it._

_"So rain check then?"_

_And now she's only smiling wider, draped in adorableness that's meant for me. That's meant to match the same smile I'm giving her. Because maybe my secret truths weren't so bad. Maybe they didn't break us._

_"Definitely."_

_Maybe they've made us brand new._

--------------

Groggy, and disoriented, my hand collapses on the bedside table, searching for the alarm that is now buzzing next to me. That has rudely woken me from such a fantastic memory.

Wait, buzzing? That can't be right. What alarm buzzes? Especially when it's so dark out and I'm this tired and it's Sunday morning...

Finally feeling the night, falling into the moment [out of dreams, I realize far later than I should, that it's not my alarm going off. I realize it's my phone buzzing itself into a million circles on the bedside table. So with a head full of matted bed hair, I grab my glasses and my phone. Instinctively flipping both on. Opening my phone without even looking to see who's calling.

There's only one person who could possibly call me.

There's only _her_.

So when I answer I close my eyes, dreaming her, seeing her, rasping "Hello" through a hopeful line. Hearing my voice smothered in sleep and wishing it weren't so obvious I was sleeping at midnight on a Saturday.

"Hey Shady..." But how could I wish for anything when it's her soft voice on the other end of that real line, sounding positively adorable. Sounding nothing short of beautiful. "...whatcha doing sleepyface?"

A lazy smile crawls inside my lips, unable to stop the giddiness from hearing her voice. From hearing her breathing. From just hearing her with me, after feeling her in my memory dreams, "Oh just catching up on my beauty sleep."

Completely cringing, I hear what I've just said in my head. Over and over again. Hearing it and hating my lack of coherency this late at night. Cursing my lack of filter after being buzzed awake.

"Oh yeah?" She breathes a little more heavily, like she were debating something, "...so I guess you're just wasting time then..." Her voice takes a turn for discreet, picturing her hiding in some dark corner so she can whisper these words, "...someone like you never needs to catch up."

My eyes squint through the darkness, as if they'll see something. As if they'll find her honesty, or maybe her sarcasm, because Lord knows I'm searching for one of the two. With a statement like that, maybe I'm just searching for _her_. Just her, because I'm learning she's really all I want. She's all I need.

And that's kinda terrifying.

"Umm..." Still desperately clinging to my hopes, I try grasping at something else, something tangible, something less terrifying, "...what are you doing?"

She chuckles, like she's doing it to ease my fears. But something inside her voice, something so far inside it, sounds like she's doing it for hers instead.

"Well, I was out driving around, you know, just checking out the neighborhoods in this crazy town, when I came across - what's it called - Beacon Street? Yeah that's it. So I'm driving down Beacon Street and I'm thinking 'Man I know a cool girl who lives on Beacon Street. I wonder what she's doing. What she's up to. Maybe I'll stop by, since I know she's not sleeping..." My heart slows down, hearing the smirk in her voice. Hearing the craftiness in her aloofness, "...since I know she's not wasting her minutes on tossing and turning."

Somehow that heart of mine dribbles down to a muted hop, just barely thumping inside my constricting chest. Just barely keeping me alive while I remember how to breathe. Envisioning the simple instructions. The simple in and out. Wondering if this is a dream. Wondering why I keep wondering that. Wondering why so much has felt too good to be true. Too amazing to be real.

And then I feel us smiling, together, sharing it through a cell phone. Picturing it in my mind's eye. Picturing this morning, lying face to face with her in that forever bed.

"So you think you might let me in?"

Before I can say anything, there's a light tap on my window. A light suggestion of so many things as her fingers continue to graze across the glass. Grazing and grazing like it were a glass case. My glass case. And suddenly I'm very, _very_, thankful to be on the first floor while my parents sleep far too soundly on the second.

"Right, um, yeah. Of course, yes."

Mumbling and blushing a million shades of red, I hop out of bed quickly. Too quickly, sending my still too tired and sleepy feet to stumble over my smooth bedroom floor. Stumbling more than I should, instantly regretting my ridiculous notion that if I just removed myself from bed, I wouldn't think of things that could happen in said bed. Because if anything, as she taps again with five finger nails gently clinking in a steady monotonous rhythm, I'm only thinking of that bed more. Thinking of her there with me. Too afraid, too shy, to think of anything more than just us lying there. Too naive to think of us doing anything but sleeping.

"Ash, it's getting cold out here. Ok, well maybe it's not _that_ cold. But it is dark and creepy, and maybe I'm getting just a _little_ bit afraid..."

Rambles from my phone, or maybe from outside, because I'm now standing at my window, anxiously unlatching the lock, wondering why I even lock it in the first place. No one knows where I live and no one wants to break through any of my locks.

But maybe she does. Because as I lift that window, heavier than anything I've ever lifted, I find her kneeling before me, face to my waist. Poking her head inside, adorably and innocently smiling at me. Barely making out her face in the moonlight with my strangely foggy vision. Wondering why everything is so hazy, even with my glasses on.

"Mind if come in?"

She looks so beyond sweet, just smiling up at me, as if she weren't just asking for me to let her in. As if this were the most spontaneous thing she's ever done.

"Of course."

I humbly mumble, stepping to the side, because _this_ is the most spontaneous thing I've ever done. And I'm not even doing it.

"Why thank you."

She chirps, like this were now any old thing. Any old nightly ritual. Like she does this every night, just climbing inside my window. Just seeping inside my heart.

And it's this realization of seeping hearts and window climbing that has me gasping quietly for a breath. Grasping for what I forgot to take and wondering how I could forget such a thing. Wondering how 'in and out' could be so far from simple all of a sudden.

In the darkness, I feel her standing before me. Right _there_ before me, maybe balling her fingers into little anxious fists [like mine, or maybe she's just letting them hang free. Maybe she's letting them out into the air, because she doesn't need to remember to breathe. Because this is just any old thing she's done so many times before.

"Hey."

Her whispered breath fills the room, fills my lungs, helping me breathe. Helping me with my 'in and out', releasing and giving a "hey" right back to her. Giving her my difficult breaths, hoping she can recycle them and make them easier for me.

"You have any lights in this room?"

A giggle breaks the tension, her giggle, breaking my tension. And I can't help but chuckle in return. Because maybe I don't even think it's _that_ funny. Maybe I only need it to be.

"Um, yeah."

Giving her an unnecessary answer, because what room in this world doesn't have a light, I fumble for a lamp on a dresser that hasn't moved in years. Fumbling for something permanent, for something that's never changed, because right now I'm seriously struggling to find _my_ ground. _My_ permanence inside a body that hasn't changed in years.

Finally I find it like it were the first time, granting this room and Spencer and myself, light. Seeing her like it were the first time. Seeing her in her gray sweat pants and her cool hoodie sweatshirt, with her hair loosely tied up in a bun. Wondering why I can't look like that in my sweat pants.

"Ahh, that's better." She says this like she were happy to be able to see the room, but she's looking at me like she were only happy to see me. Like she were relieved even, and I feel a flutter in my heart when I realize that relief reaches me as well, "...so this is where Ashley Davies wastes her minutes, huh?"

Twirling slowly she keeps her eyes on mine for a beat too long, before she gives them to my walls. To my life and the years she's never seen. To my fathers paintings proudly pinned to every wall and the endless shelves of books overflowing everywhere. Just like her dvd's.

I think her eyes are catching that similarity right now. Catching it, observing it, and keeping it.

"Books..." She finally whirls herself back to me, eyes looking so settled, so grounded, like _she_ just found her permanence, "...that's your thing, isn't it?"

"Um, yeah..." I bite my lip, twirling my own feet, maybe a little insecure, maybe a little shy, maybe finally showing her the real me. "...I guess."

"That's awesome. I wish I read more. I know, like, nothing about books..." She strolls over to my bed, like she owns it or something, like this were just any old thing, "...maybe you can lend me something sometime. Get me into something you like."

Her eyes cast back to me, from over her shoulder, before she flops down on my bed. "Oh man, this bed is absolutely _divine_. So much better than mine and you know why?"

I'm not answering because I don't know why. And I'm not even sure I'm listening. I'm just watching her face down on _my_ bed, like it were hers, like it were so much more than mine. Watching her whispering into the threads where my bedhead hair just was. Maybe breathing it in like I did last night with her pillow. Maybe like I'm doing right now in my very own room.

"Because it's had years of experience. It's been slept in so many nights, and that makes for the best beds ever. You know, when they're all slumped and broken down? When they've been cried on and smiled on and, uh..." She stops herself, and it catches me from barely listening, bringing me _right_ back to what she's saying, cause whatever it is, it must be something interesting, must be something blush worthy, "...well when a bed's been put through life, that's what gives it comfort. You know?"

I have no idea, actually. But I nod my head anyway, still stuck on what she was supposed to say after "smiled on". Still caught up in those bedtime thoughts I had before she crawled through my window. Finally starting to see what might happen if she and I were lying on this bed...not sleeping.

And I can _not_ think about that anymore.

"You're really not going to leave me all alone on this comfortable bed of yours, are you?" And she makes it nearly impossible for me to give up those non-sleeping-bed thoughts, with her very suggestive raised eyebrow and dimpled smirk, meant for _only_ me, "...come on Ash, _where_ are your manners?"

Somehow I gain enough strength and coherency to fumble my way to my comfortable bed that's not so comfortable with her lying on it. With her lying face down on my pillows that have been smothered by my hair and my smiles and my tears.

"Sorry." Ridiculously leaves my lips, not even sure what I'm apologizing for, and her smile tells me she agrees. Her faced tucked between her crossed arms around her head, tells me she has no idea what I'm apologizing for either.

"Don't be sorry, Shady." She still whispers into herself, and so far into me, like she always does when I'm close, "...I'm the one who should be apologizing for just dropping by unannounced, it's just that Glen, well, he..." She stops short, looking torn between herself and her words, looking so much like me that I can't help but sit a little bit closer to her. I can't help but guide her through it, like she's guided me.

"What about Glen?"

And she knows it. She knows just what I've done, smiling up at me, appreciatively, finally breathing an even breath. Grounded and permanent in her place on my experienced bed.

"Well he's just having this stupid party with all his even stupider basketball friends and I just couldn't be there any longer. But I, uh, I really didn't have anywhere else to go."

Her eyes look down into the shadows between her arms and the blankets, like it were a place for her to hide. Like she needs it, and suddenly I really really don't like her hiding.

"Well you do now." Said with so much confidence, I wonder if I've really said it, and from the surprised look in her eye, it seems she's wondering the same, "...I mean, you always have a place here, if you need somewhere to go."

My eyes tie with the fingers in my lap, the ones grasping and weaving together in anxiousness. Like she'd ever turn me down or shut me out. Like this were any old thing.

"Thank you."

But she'd never do any of that, just like this isn't any old thing. For either us. So when I whisper, "No problem" back to her, I make sure she feels it. I make sure she catches my breath and keeps it. In case she ever needs it.

The silence allows our eyes to find each other. Allowing us to do all the things we've missed, but didn't completely realize it until now. Until right in this very moment where we're feeling it all again. And we just keep looking and staring, longer and longer. Watching the way her eyes droop more and more. Seeing the tired in them. Seeing the yearning to never move. Seeing the desperation to stay inside my bed with my smiles and my tears. Seeing them slowly closing, relishing in the warmth between us, while she hums contently. "Mmm, I could seriously fall asleep. Just like this."

My heart speeds up with that statement, and not for the obvious reasons. No, my heart speeds up solely for the bedroom upstairs and the people sleeping inside it and how they would _not_ appreciate this house guest.

"But don't worry..." As if she knows _just_ what I'm thinking, she pops one eye open, heading directly for mine, heading for all my insecurities, turning them around and securing them, "...I won't."

Slowly she gives me a look. One look with so much below her surface, with so much behind her face value. Bringing all those thoughts I can't bring myself to think about. The ones involving this bed with her and me inside it. The ones that can't go beyond sleeping, because I don't even really know where _exactly_ that is.

And it makes me feel like I need to prove my insecurities never needed anything.

"I wasn't worried."

Oh but I was, and not even that mumbled reply, falling inside a breath of pure relief, can mask it. Not even my measly big girl act can cover up my little girl heart.

"Oh of course not." My words and eyes masked nothing, because she just winked at me, I swear she did. And now she's sliding her hand out from beneath her, moving it to wrap around one of my threaded fingers. Wrapping it and holding it, securing me inside her. Tugging gently, she whispers, "Come on, lie with me for a little bit. It's lonely down here without your face..." Her voice slows and fades, like she were thinking better of it, like she were searching for that forever old lamp within herself, needing to flick something on that she can't find, "...I mean, without you to talk to."

She's barely whispering now, like she just couldn't find that light. And maybe that's why she's wrapping her hand tighter around me. Pulling and guiding my body down next to hers. Pulling and guiding me where I've wanted to go all night. Still too afraid to think of the things that could happen once I got there. Still so scared to think of what might happen now that I'm here. Beyond terrified thinking of possibly going there.

Never even realizing that I'm _already_ there. I'm so far there, and I don't even know it.

Because we're just lying here, face to face, like it were so new. We're just holding hands, like it were the first time.

And we're just helping each other breathe. Just giving each other the in and out.

Like it were any old thing.


	9. Beacon Street Light

Birds chirp as they float and soar outside my locked window. Watching it all from my ancient desk, subconsciously slipping a pencil between my teeth. Biting and twirling, distantly tasting burnt rubber mixed with old wood. Not even fazed by it. Not even really tasting it. Completely lost glancing out that window, wondering why I'm still locking myself inside it.

But that's not what I'm really wondering about. That outside world is not what has me befuddled over locked windows.

And you all know it. Probably more than even me.

You know that after last night there's so much more I wonder about. Wondering, over and over again, slouched here in my chair. Suspended in procrastination, pretending to do the homework I've pretended to do all day. Because the minutes are like hours, and the hours are like days. And this Sunday, which are already dreadful to begin with, has crawled by slower than the slowest slug.

Because this Sunday, after a weekend full of hands and eyes and beds and smiles, has never felt longer.

Has never felt like torture, but torture of the most delicious kind. Even though I have no clue what that kind of deliciousness is like, I have to believe this is what it is. I have to believe this is what the act of teasing is.

Even though it's self inflicted. Which I'm starting to believe is the worst kind. Delicious or not.

With an assertive shake of my head, I blink. I sigh. Looking to snap out of it. But it's not working. I'm still dazed and unfocused, stuck somewhere between content and frustrated. Caught in such a strange place, having nothing to do with the homework before me. Not even concerning myself with the double digit pages I still have to read. Those inconveniences, that once thrilled me, bore me. They no longer faze me.

They throw me into another world. Into a weekend world, where I'm trapped. Isolated inside my little room with all my books and my little girl thoughts. Thoughts that are changing, molding and growing into big girl thoughts. I'm living inside days behind me. Days filled with twisted smiles and ocean eyes and changed beds.

I'm glimpsing back at that changed bed behind me.

Unable to escape the memories it now keeps.

Unable to stop the tease.

_It's so very quiet as my eyes slowly open, barely seeing my room draped in orange. Draped in early morning, inspiring my dull eyes to close once more. Allowing myself the laziness that only a Sunday morning can grant a person._

However, something wrapped around my waist has other plans for me.

Something pulling my body close doesn't want those chestnut eyes to close.

Something in the form of her arm curled around my waist with a soft hand slipping across my back, shakes my sleepy eyes open. Shakes my disoriented form straight into oriented, looking for answers. Looking for reasons and explanations.

Because what is **she** still doing here?

I could have sworn I made sure she left before we both fell into sleep and dreams. Before we could seep inside the places where everything we want, we take. Where everything we wish to say and do, we actually say and do.

Her fuzzy face, that's somehow clear in this burnt light, is so close to mine and it sends my eyes to clasp shut again. As if she'll disappear. As if it'll prove that I'm still inside those places where I see all I wish, and do all I want, because how could this be true?

But as my panicked eyes open again, finding her still here and still so beautiful, with a hand that's still so real tightly wound around my body, I know she really is here. And then I'm only wondering how I could be so stupid.

Only wondering for a brief moment, though, as she somehow pulls me closer. Pulling till I have no choice but to push my leg awkwardly between hers, hearing her sigh with what sounds like satisfaction. Hearing her breath puff, feeling it against my throat, somehow permeating through my perspired skin. Joining my own inhalations.

Closing my eyes, once again wondering if I'm still sleeping. If I'm still stuck inside safe places.

"Hey."

But her gravely voice, too sleepy to live inside dreams, slices into my neck, and I know this is happening. I sadly and happily know this is happening, feeling the contradiction, wondering how that's possible. How relief and panic can fill me all at once, at the same time, in such overwhelming and equal amounts.

"You awake?"

But I don't have time to wonder about fear and anxiety and relief and joy, when there's too much of it unfolding right now, before me. When it's filling me up whole, beyond comprehension or wonderment.

When she's still lying so close to me, asking if I'm still with her or still inside dreams.

"Y-Yeah." Stutters, croaks, from my numb lips. Feeling the chill spread through my body, strangely tingling me hot at the same time.

For a moment she snuggles closer to me, one fleeting freeing moment, her face buries into the hallow between shoulder and jaw. Cheek flushed and pressed against my neck. One fleeting freeing moment before she takes it back. Shifting her body away, inches from me now, clearly registering the moment, the morning. Finally understanding that those safe places are not places found inside this bed. Yet.

"Sorry." She weakly but sweetly mumbles, still close enough so I feel it as I hear it, "...I always sleep holding something, and I guess I just got...I just thought..."

Words keep rumbling and tumbling from her lips like skipping stones, so smooth and flat with barely any substance, that I can hardly hear them. Feeling like I should lean closer until I realize the reason for the mumble. Until I realize she probably doesn't want to have to say them, let alone have me hear them. So I help us both and back away.

Reaching to catch her stones.

"Its ok..." One full breath slides deep inside my throat, sticking and closing, feeling her eyes on me even though they're below me, "...I, uh, like to be held so I guess it's a win-win."

Nervously chuckling, I would wonder if I really said the words if it weren't for the smile on her face. The one I feel without seeing, knowing I've hit a mark inside her, hit it so hard that it's bounced back and reverberated inside me. Echoing through my paralyzed body, chiseling and chipping, breaking through the freeze.

"I can't believe we fell asleep." Falls from my lips, from somewhere outside myself, because why am I still talking when she shouldn't still be lying here, next to me, in my bed, with my parents upstairs, and a fraction of an inch between us.

But then she giggles, in that way that sends my stomach to a deserted island, and I'm no longer worried. I'm no longer thinking about anything outside the words she's about to skip over me. Through me. Inside me.

"I can..." And then her hand's creeping up the bed, finger tips crawling and dancing, drawing my eyes to look directly into hers "...I told you, it's your bed. It's divine. Why would anyone ever want to leave it?"

In a way, I believe her because this bed is as amazing as she's made it out to be. But those melting eyes tell me something outside those amazing bed words. Her eyes are telling me it's the person inside this bed that makes it divine. Telling me it's the way blue mixes with brown, making some heavenly color that probably belongs to those far away deserted islands I was just talking about.

"Yeah. I think you're right."

I say it like I believe it. Like I know an iota of what she's talking about. Like I understand her language of touches and smiles and hands and beds. Like I've lived inside the worlds she's seen.

But I haven't. And she knows it. Yet she doesn't mind.

"So how does Shady spend her Sunday's?" A lifted eyebrow fits inside her curious words, so playful and adorable, that I can't stop the smile spreading over my still-not-grasping-the-situation face, "...at the beach with moi? Working on our shameful tans?"

Her eyes spark with hope and anticipation. Repeating her 'yeah?'s with a look. And once again I have to shatter them, and this time, I sort of don't mind. Because there's no way a body as pale as mine belongs on a beach beside a body as bold as hers. A body that was made to drape across soft sand and wade through crisp water.

"Actually -"

Floor boards creaking and cracking break my words, sending my clumsy body to hop out of bed, finally, **finally**, grasping this very real and very unfortunate situation. No longer feeling contradicting concoctions of emotion, only feeling dread and fear. Hopelessly mixing together to make an anxious mess.

"Shoot!" Exclaims in a squeak from my throat, briefly feeling foolish and childish for not cursing. Suddenly, forgetting it as soon as I still see her lying there, a crooked smile playing with her lips, looking more and more like the proverbial devil perched on my shoulder, "...you have to go. My parents, they're awake, and they're gonna be down here any minute to wake me up to get ready for church."

These hurried words bubble between my breaths and hiccups, as I frantically pace the floor boards of my little girl room, while her eyes follow me, filled with both bemusement and surprise, "Church? I didn't take you or Mr. D for strict Christians."

She smirks, trying to play me with her experienced games and whatever else she's throwing at me that I still can't quite put my finger on, but I understand enough to ridiculously try playing along.

"We're not." Confident smirk, even eyes, with fingers that can hide their nervous fiddling, "Mom on the other hand..."

"Ahh." She curls her lip, ready to keep it up, and I'm ready to eat it up. Eat every word, hoping to come up with something of my own. Ready until -

"Ashley!"

My mother calls from somewhere in this small house, meaning that no matter where she is, no matter how far, she's still close. Too close.

"Shit!" And finally my little girl lungs find an unfiltered response to my mother approaching. Quickly approaching my little girl room with a big girl sleeping inside it.

"You have to go. Now." Screeches in a harsh whisper from my chest, moving to physically remove her from my bed, where she looks far too comfortable. Wrapping my shaky hand around her arm, helping to extricate her from a bed that doesn't belong to her, but seems like she wished it did.

"Ok. Ok. I'm going, don't worry!" But she's laughing as she reassures me, and it really does nothing to appease me.

"Well you have to go faster."

We walk together to the window, my hand still wrapped around her arm, and while I've convinced myself it's to keep her moving. I'm almost positive it's to keep me from falling apart. It's to keep me from becoming even more scared of whatever I'm scared of. Feeling safer just for having her within my grasp. Between my touch.

She pulls the window up all on her own, and finally I feel the remorse and regret for having to kick her out. Or maybe it's just from her leaving at all.

"I'm sorry, I wish you didn't have -"

"Hey, don't worry abut it." She sweetly cuts me off from my regret, straddling the sill of my window, one foot dangling in a world of freedom, one foot planted in mine, "...when Jesus calls, you gotta listen."

She smiles, sunlight now draped over her, and I see it all perfectly. So perfectly it almost hurts. Because my blind eyes actually find her. They actually see her. Only her. And how is that possible?

"I had fun." Whispers from my lips, no longer caring where my mom is, if she's going to crash our little safe world of dreams and sleep and beds with people moving inside them.

"Me too." She whispers back, syllables breaking, making me think it's not because she needs to keep quiet, "Thank you, Ash."

Suddenly, I feel her hand inside mine, gently squeezing and pinching and setting my body on fire. Breaking it from the numb, the chill, the paralysis, and searing it with a promise of things to come.

"Call me later."

And before I can say anything or do anything, like I were living inside a safe dream or something, she's out of my window and out of my world. Jogging across my lawn in a graceful and gorgeous whirl. Leaving me to close my window and lock the latch.

Leaving me to stand back, watching her with hooded eyes that have never felt more opened.

-----------

Gentle rapping from somewhere outside breaks my reverie and my tease, coming back to this life, unsatisfied and frustrated. Glancing to the window, I can't help but smile, finding the cause for interruption to be none other than Spencer's goofy and smiling face. And it easily makes me very satisfied and very thwarted all at once. But no longer caring or wondering how the contradiction happens. Only happy that it is happening, because she's causing it. She's eliciting so much inside me.

Eyes widened in disbelief and surprise and relief, I hiss "What are you doing here?" as if she could hear me. As if I needed a reason or explanation.

She smiles wider, a dusky sky setting behind her, making me realize how long I've been spacing, before her muffled and dull "Open up and let me in" reaches me, breaking me from my memories. Sending me to the window, unlocking it (mentally asking why I locked it in the first place) and opening it with a big case of deja vu.

Even though I've granted her entrance, she remains on her knees outside, idly waiting. Idly something I'm unsure of, and before I know it, I'm down on my knees too, coming face to face with her. Finding her positively glowing in the ever darkening sky, her rosy skin sun kissed from the beach. I've never seen her more natural, or beautiful, with cascading curls and brighter than blue eyes. Looking the true epitome of a beach girl.

"Hey you."

She whispers, like a little kid, chin now resting on top of her hands on top of the white wood of my window sill. Her skin is so tan the the contrast is almost black versus white, and I idly wish _I_ could be _that_ tan.

"Hey"

It's disconcerting how thin and tinny my voice sounds. Like the thick scorching air between us stoked it into oblivion, turning it into a pile of ash and soot. Leaving her to thread through the mess, looking like she doesn't mind. Looking so very thoughtful, and positively adorable, as she searches, tilting her head, displaying the curiosity tied inside her whispered words, "Whatcha doin?"

We lock eyes and smiles and tongues and teeth in a heated moment, before I answer, before I can even find words to give back to her. "Homework.." A smile quirks my lips, crooking and pulling them in crafty directions, as I quickly dip my head, only to bring it back to look into her eyes, unable to stay away from them, "...or pretending to."

She giggles, lilting the room with her unquestionable deviousness, "Well then, Miss Davies, what were you _really_ doing?"

Her question _seems_ innocent enough, but _seems_ only goes so far, and I'm tripping over my words, cheeks burning crimson red, heart beat thumping a mile a minute. "I, uh, I was..." _thinking about you_ "...just, well..."

"Picking out a book for me?" Her eyebrows reach the sky, looking cutely oblivious, like she knows exactly what I was doing. Like she knows but doesn't need to hear it. Because knowing is good enough. For now, knowing is all she needs to tide her over while she spends her free hours on the beach. While she spends her time away from me possibly thinking about _us_.

And now I'm wondering what she's doing here. Of all places that big beach could lead her to, why would she come back here? To this small and plain house on the shady corner of Beacon Street?

"What are _you_ doing here?" Dribbles through my smile, caught inside a solely satisfied haze, not even realizing just how happy I am she's here, not even caring _why_ or how the beach led her to my window. Only relieved that it brought her anywhere close to me.

Oh, but now her eyes are glancing away from my face, looking hesitant and a little bit sad, and I'm more than caring. I'm losing any sense of playfulness, only wanting to show her sincerity instead.

But she beats me to it.

"I just wanted to see you..." Slow breath, softer now, "...Just _you_, Ash." With a heavy exhalation, her voice leaves all traces of deviousness in the far distant past, finding a new home inside pure tenderness and pure adoration, warming and cooling my body all at once, "...and I'm sorry if that's too forward or too much, but it's the truth. I could've made up some excuse but what's the point in lying when I miss you. When I've missed you all day..." She finally looks back up to me, somehow closer than she was before, or maybe I'm closer, either way, she's _there_, and I'm _here_, and it all feels like a camera zooming in (or maybe fading out), "...What's the point in lying when the truth is obvious. When it's so past being obvious, there's no use in hiding it anymore." Those aqua eyes, slightly red from the salt of the ocean [or maybe something else, pierce through me, so far and so deep, with an obvious truth and if I thought I was blushing before, I was fooling myself.

It's so quiet now. So quiet in the wake of tidal wave confessions, and I still hear those birds chirping, flying free, flying without a care. For a brief moment, I find myself ridiculously wondering once more why I locked that window separating us. Wondering if I'll ever be brave enough to leave it open.

"I-I missed you too." The words cut through my idle wonders, needing to break through them and my self-made distractions. The words make her smile, slow and small, but too small for my liking, "...I missed you a lot, actually."

The million-dollar jack-pot smile forms across her face. The one I've been playing in my mind all day. Picturing over and over again. Innocently across from me, safely beside me.

Dangerously above me, burning under me.

"It's crazy isn't it?" She shakes her head, a light draft having blown a few beach curls across her too-gorgeous-to-be-covered-up face, "...last week I barely knew you, you barely knew me. Hell I don't know if you ever even saw me..." My eyes blink in a double take, unable to comprehend her believing I never saw her, when all I've ever seen is _her_. But I can't do anything about it. Not when she's looking past me, glancing _just_ below me with her chin perched on her folded hands, only giving me her thoughts spoken out loud, "...and now I'm here, saying all these things I probably shouldn't. Just kneeling outside your window, talking in circles, like I'm Joey Potter or something..." My eyes knit in confusion, but she doesn't recognize it, doesn't look for it, as she whispers, so freaking soft it takes everything in me to not lean across the window threshold and press my ear to her lips (press my anything to her lips) "...just waiting for Dawson to let me in."

Dawson? Joey? Who are these people?

And then I don't care. I don't care about anything in the world [like those birds flying around us because her hands are unfolding and reaching out for mine. Because her eyes never leave my cobalt brown, dead set on them with the softest blows, as she uses a bold finger to draw over my skin like the doodles in her sketch pad. Drawing her talent inside me, and I hope it stays there, with me. Forever.

Suddenly there are more fingers drawing, impossible circles and squares and other shapes I don't know the names of, eliciting the quietest sighs from my lips. Noises I never knew I was capable of making. Noises I never even knew existed, living somewhere between pleasure and pain.

I want to say something so badly, like "stop" or "what are you doing" or just her name. Just "Spencer" so I can feel it roll off my tongue as she touches me, as she makes me want to do so much more than just say her name. But then those fingers slowly move up to my cheeks, delicately cupping and holding me still, holding me close, holding me up because I swear I can't breathe. I swear I need them to keep me from falling as the slow start of a tremor fills my bones, working its way through my body. And I know she feels it, I know she slides her fingers down to my neck because of it, to get a better grip. To keep me from tipping over.

She smiles, warm and gentle, like a doctor or someone else who holds a person's life in their hands. Like someone who means to tell you 'you're safe'. Well, I don't feel so safe now. All I feel are my lips quivering as I bravely look back to her eyes [unaware I could ever look anywhere else and finding them somehow smiling at me. Finding them saying so much more than my lips ever could, losing myself in them because I never knew eyes could do anything but see. Because my eyes can barely do that, can barely do what they're meant for.

The wind picks up again, wafting a mixture of sun block, coconut, and something that's _just_ Spencer to fill me whole. Never smelling anything better in my life.

With a lip fitted between her teeth, she slowly leans over the threshold, moving toward me in slow motion and I swear my heart starts beating at an alarming rate. I swear it might break through my chest and smack her away. Might just push her like I so desperately need but don't want. Because now Spencer's crystal eyes are staring down on my fumbling lips, dryer than a desert with a tongue that's too numb, too nervous to even bother wetting them. To even bother moving, because what if she sees it and then finds it with hers?

What would I do then?

My God, what would I do - No, what _am_ I doing?

I'm gulping and breathless, because she's suddenly _right_ there, so close her breath paints my lips in condensation. Paints me in colors beyond my comprehension. So close I think I might cry, which makes this, makes me, all the more sad and hopeless. My knees are tired, my eyes are so dry, stinging with the promise of confusing tears, and my bones - my bones tremble like it were the middle of winter and Spencer were a blizzard. And I'm just kneeling here before an open window, stupidly wondering why I bother locking it still, instead of wondering why it's still opened.

And then she's moving, crazy close, and I can't bite back the words or the need to push away. The need to shut that window and lock those locks and forget this big girl world, so I can safely stay inside mine. The need for my trembling lips to gasp her name, gasping "Spencer" to push her away.

Or maybe to feel her on my tongue.

But she's already there to comfort me and calm me, whispering "It's ok" right into my ear, lips grazing and chilling my body cold, making me wonder if it _is_ in fact winter. Gently, her nimble fingers tangle into my hair, feeling the pinch as she threads through the tight pieces fitted into my bun.

"It's ok." She repeats again, before sealing it off with a kiss to my forehead. Pressing her wet and cool ocean lips to my untainted sandy skin. Tainting it with unbelievable care. With her gentler than gentle touch.

I feel a breath leave me, so burdened and hurried and overwhelmed, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to inhale again. I'm not sure I'll ever want to take any of that back inside me. Because it's too much, too scary, too beyond me.

But then I open my eyes [never remembering them closed to begin with, and there's Spencer. Just as she was, chin on her hands, eyes on me, never looking more safe. Never looking more welcoming. Scents of summer and blue skies and white sand drifting from her into me, and before I know it, I'm inhaling again.

I'm inhaling it all inside me, everything about this moment, hoping it stays with me. Forever.

"I'll let you get back to your homework..." Her nonchalance, her regularity, would be alarming if it weren't so relieving, realizing we don't have to talk about what almost happened. We don't have to talk about crossing thresholds and girls that cry for no other reason than proximity, "...I just had to see you, Shady. Just _you_."

Somehow the repeated words, that once scared me, almost thrill me, easier to hear this time around. Like they're less scary the more she says them, the longer I have to get used to them hanging out there in the open air. Like a bike I have to learn to ride, needing to trust gravity and myself, before I can freely let go.

"Wait. Before you leave..." And so I try letting go, little by little, testing the air with my fingertips as I quickly walk back to _my_ world inside a big wooden bookshelf. Tasting the freedom and satisfaction in making her smile, as I walk back, kneeling before her with a favorite between my fingers to match the favorite before my eyes, "...Try this one. If you, uh, still want something good to read. It's not that bad."

Not that bad doesn't even begin to describe it, because _To The Lighthouse_ isn't only good, it's my life. It's my most treasured possession that belongs in a safe, and not only have I given it to her. Not only have I given her a book that might as well be my life savings, I've given her _my_ original copy. The one my mother bought me five years ago for Christmas. The day she probably realized I'd never be her, so she let me be who I was instead.

Spencer doesn't even look at the book, the biggest gift I could ever give a person, before she thanks me for it. Not needing to know titles or authors, because with her I already know it makes no difference. Because looking at her gracious eyes, catching the way she hugs _my_ life to her chest, I know my thoughtful gesture was enough to make her day. Was enough to make so much more than that, and somehow it makes me sad.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" She whispers into the air, sounding like a child going to bed at night, so afraid of waking up alone in the dark. And suddenly I wish I could let her stay with me, inside my bed, somehow knowing it'd never grow that dark with us, together, inside it.

"Of course, bright and early."

But my whispered reply is the best I can give her. The promise of tomorrow is the best I can give her today.

"I can't wait..." She says it like she's never meant anything more, as her tan fingers tap over white wood, biting her lip like it were her tongue "...goodnight, Shady."

Waiting a beat, one terrifying beat, I reach out for her handlebar, wrapping my hand around hers, squeezing one brave squeeze, reassuring her I feel the same. Reassuring her I _do_ feel it, even if I can't say it yet, "Goodnight Spencer."

One last look, full of meaning, full of tongues and teeth and under-me-smiles, and she's gone. Disappearing into the shadows, leaving me inside my lit up room with all my books. With the biggest and best one missing, I stand from where I've been forever planted, feeling like it's been years since I last stood. Years since I last saw myself.

And I keep standing there, right before an open window, looking across my dark lawn, like I could still see her.

Finally, I close that window of mine, squinting past my own reflection into the night, hoping to find her.

Hesitating, one freeing moment, before I turn away. Before I walk back to my bed, leaving the lock unlatched. Hoping it's enough to keep me safe. Keep us_both_ safe.

Hoping Beacon Street will carry her home, never dimming, only shining brighter. Only piercing a light across town for her to sleep with.

For her to wake up to. 


	10. Feels Like Falling

It's been five days. Five days since that Sunday where Spencer knelt outside my window, outside my little girl world, begging to be let inside. Begging for so much more than I was ready for, but leaving me with so much more than I ever expected. Leaving me with windows left unlocked and whispered safeties. Leaving me stuck inside wet lips pressed to fragile foreheads. Leaving me wondering how sky blue could sear such warmth inside dark brown.

Leaving me with a little girl heart wrapped inside her careful hands, tucked inside such thick safety.

But I'm still nervous. So nervous. Five days later, I'm still mumbling, stuttering even, when she's near. When she's close. Feeling my cheeks on fire, drowning in my sweaty palms, painfully realizing _that_ messy expression is unfortunately true. So true. They're all true, all those hopeless cliches, and they're filling me inside. The butterflies, the dry lips, the swimming thoughts. Just for feeling her ethereal eyes on me. No matter how safe or how gentle, still feeling the burn. Still feeling the danger in such exhilarating amounts.

I still shake when she calls. Every night, every moment, seeing her name flash before my eyes, I feel that heart of mine drop in my chest. Like it were pulling all the blood from the rest of my body, leaving my limbs numb and trembling. Leaving my fingers fumbling to answer her call, so afraid to pick up, but still so desperate to hear her voice. Because the tremble always fades. Because the quiver always subsides. Because the words always come easily, the conversation always lasts hours, and the silence - the silence always feels safe. So safe, even as it stretches on and on, mixing our breaths and our smiles together.

Mixing together the most comforting formula I've ever heard or ever felt.

A formula that's carried me all the way here. Carried me to Friday and through the nerves, through the cliches, through the hearts thumping, a strange sense of satisfaction has set in. Has found me. Entered and shifted and its just twisting and turning me into something new. Something different. Something in the form of a girl who doesn't care that she had to get up early this morning or that she couldn't find her favorite frumpy button down shirt. A girl who didn't mind settling for the too tight button down her mother bought for her. The one that has always required a t-shirt, a safety shirt, to wrap around her fragile body.

No, that girl has ditched the safety today. She's carelessly left it behind in her closet, feeling like maybe she doesn't need it. Feeling terrifyingly brave enough to risk the cling and mold, wearing the shirt her mother bought for her in the way she meant it to be worn.

Fitted and tight, showing every inch of the body beneath it.

But both that girl and that body belong to me and maybe it's that dawning realization, as I park in my usual shadowy spot, that has the strange satisfaction bleeding away from me. Just flowing out of my heart and steering straight out of my pores. Floating and breezing through the air of my windows, out into the world, instead of searing inside me.

Leaving all those cliches, nerves, and thumping hearts to act up on me again.

Because what am I doing wearing this shirt? What am I doing showing off this body? Who am I to believe I could be my mother by wearing one of her shirts?

Who ever said little girls become big girls by leaving off undershirts?

Shaking my head, suddenly (too suddenly) feeling very insecure. Feeling very frightened, like I might just turn this car around and drive all the way back home. Drive all the way back to that little girl and that dissatisfaction and that life as it was before. The one tucked behind locked windows.

"You know something, Shady..." And then her voice is calling to me, filling me, fitting me better than any button down or safety shirt, giving me the satisfaction I was so close to easily losing, like she's actually capturing all of it from outside my window, capturing everything that had _almost_ breathed right out of me, "...even in the shade you stand out." Her eyes squint down on me, as if I were the sun that's really behind her, silhouetting her body, "...More than anyone."

My fingers grip for my car keys, jingling and twirling them over and over again, just trying to hold onto something real because everything else feels so fabricated. Feels like falling, so fast and so hard. Whirring me into a blur.

I don't know what to say, what to give back to her, but once again she breaks me from my little girl over analyzing as she simply whispers "Hey" into the morning air. The morning air that's never felt crisper, because that simple "hey" wasn't simple at all. Not even close. I've never heard one word soaked in such intimacy, such inclusion, like it were made just for me. Like it were sculpted to perfection from her lungs and shaped inside her gorgeous lips and pressed inside my heart. Saying so much more than just hello. Saying things like maybe she's pictured my smiles too. Like she's been picturing them all around her and beneath her and inside her.

And now that crisp intimate morning air has me strangely gasping for a breath, like I haven't been grasping for the past five day, as I try whispering a choked "Hey" right back to her. Praying it says everything hers said, because she needs to know I _do_ feel it. Hoping it doesn't even come close to saying what hers said, because I'm still such a little girl who doesn't understand _how_ to feel it.

"So are you gonna come with me to class, or am I just gonna have to join you in _there_?" But then her calm voice floats inside me, like it always does, blinking me from my baby blur, bringing me to look into her clear eyes, so clear they keep me from losing myself, "...Actually, you know what? I think I like that second option _way_ more. So you just stay right where you are and I'll be there in a second."

But she doesn't move. She only lifts her lips in a warm smirk, like she knows I would never ever even think of skipping school. Like she knows what a good little girl stands before her, even without her safety layer.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to go with option number one, too." I smirk right back, finally feeling the formula, finally finding my voice, and noticing the way her face falls just the tiniest bit I can't help but whisper sincerely, "...Unfortunately."

Finally making sure she does know I do feel it.

Her smiling face looks back to me, eyes looking nowhere but me as I finally leave the familiarity of my car, entering the frightful crisp air.

"Boo, you're no fun!" She keeps smiling, dressed in playfulness as she sweetly watches me. Watches sweetly until her eyes change. Until those eyes zero in on me "...That shirt, it, uh, it looks really good on you..." Eyes still crawling and pausing and pushing and peeling, turning me into a puddle of flush and fire, "...I mean, you look really cute...in it...on you."

She keeps fumbling for her words as a coat of red colors her cheeks, looking more like me than her, and it gives me a smile. A smile I'm so desperate for, finally feeling on the same page, feeling equal, feeling like we're both the same girl, instead of ones who are light years away from each other.

"Thank you." Whispered and humbled, I glimpse down at my sneakers, watching how they twist and turn all on their own.

"Of course." With words she ropes my eyes back to hers, smiling dumbly, instantly remembering our weekend, routinely remembering all those sleepovers and those moments, and things that didn't happen but could have. Once again, feeling mortified and exhilarated at once, knowing that those things could happen someday. Could happen right now, "...So you ready for some serious art fun? Find out what kick ass assignments your dad has waiting for us?"

But her sarcasm derails the humiliating memories, extinguishes the fire starting thoughts, as I feel her wrap around me as if _she_ were _the_ perfect undershirt. Like I'll never need anything more.

"Probably. But he's not gonna be here today so I guess it'll just have to wait for Monday." Distantly mumbles from my oblivious lips, not even sure I really said it. Too caught up picturing her smiles, feeling my cheeks rosy with what flashes before my eyes. For the briefest second finding her hovering over me-

"What?!" Her practically shrieking voice shakes me from those inappropriate thoughts, finding her oddly shocked, "...and we're still standing here?? We should be at the beach by now."

Beach? What? No, no, no. That is not gonna happen, and I don't care how pathetic my excuse is, I have to make sure she understands that I'm not the ditching type, even when my dad's not around. Even when no one's around.

"Um, no, I don't - I mean, I just, that's something that-"

"Yeah, you're probably right. Ditching's a bad idea..." Soft and sweet and everything I need, she placates my worry, extinguishes my ramble, "...I_guess_ we'll do the whole school thing. Man, you are such a good influence on me."

Eyes seriously trained on mine, she hangs her mouth open. Crookedly. Enticingly. And my smile couldn't grow bigger, couldn't stretch further across my face. Because that suggestive sentence just sounded so good on her.

Sounded even better on me.

"Oh yeah?"

My stomach suddenly twists in knots, twists in complication and confusion, because I've never said anything so flirtatious, so daring, so suggestive, and the smirk she shines to me, through me, says she knows it. Looks like she's surprised even. But it's more than that. Looks like she's proud, like she's been waiting for this. Just waiting for me to play along, so she can play back. So she can play even harder.

"Oh yeah." Heightened smirk, darkening eyes, "...So good it's almost bad."

Internally gulping and gasping, reaching for those keys again, needing the tangible because that smirk is going places I know nothing about, places I never even knew existed, crumbling my stomach into a series of crumbs.

"Shit, I totally forgot something in my car..." Before I can stumble away from those scary scary places, she's already driving us back inside the places I _do_ know, places I'm learning, places only _she's_ shown me, "...will you wait for me while I just run back and get it?"

I barely nod, softly assuring her, feeling like it's so pointless, because I don't think I'd ever go anywhere without her. I think I'd wait forever for her, if it meant she'd be with me someday.

I would wait forever for that.

What a pathetic thought, what a sad little thought. A thought that should have me running, so far and so fast. Leaving her waiting for me, because she _can_ wait. Because she's been waiting and she does it easily. So easily.

But I'm not running or pathetic or sad. I'm only smiling as I wait for her, so easily, possibly easier than anything I've ever done. Just waiting and picturing and remembering soft smiles, wet kisses, and beds with people moving inside them.

People like us.

"Hey Ashley."

Someone's voice, a voice that does _not_ belong to Spencer, interrupts my very inappropriate thoughts, and I'm turning around still foolishly half praying/half expecting it to be Spencer. Just needing it to be her when she's on my mind, when she's in such dangerous places.

When I'm there with her.

But it's _so_ not Spencer. It's Aiden. And now I'm truly mortified. Feeling that button down clinging tighter than ever.

"Oh, uh, hey." My surprise and suspicion couldn't be any clearer, because really what does he want with me when Spencer's all the way back _there_?

"How's it going?"

Seeing him closer, seeing him under the real rays of the sun, I find something different about him. Something in the way he repeatedly pulls on his black backpack straps. Finding it so familiar. Too familiar. Finding it just like me and my maroon backpack. And somehow it calms me. Relaxes me, finding his easy smile so welcoming and so open.

So accepting.

"It's ok. How bout with you?"

His smile grows, maybe seeing the ease inside myself, maybe seeing the way that suffocating shirt has loosened just the tiniest bit. Just enough to let me breathe.

"Pretty good. So stoked the weekend's here."

Laughter lilts from his lips, so warmly, like he doesn't want anything from me. Like all he needs is for me to breathe easy. Like all he needs is to keep waiting with me, even if he doesn't know what we're waiting for.

"Yeah. Seriously."

And I don't know how _that_ makes _me_ feel. Because now we're just kinda looking at each other. Because now his eyes are starting to remind me of someone else's.

"You got any plans?"

Somehow, I swallow five breaths all at once, feeling so uneasy. Feeling so out in the open, because he's looking at me like Spencer looks at me. He's doing things that only Spencer's done, and I'm not sure I want that. I'm not sure he's allowed that. But what's really frightening? I'm not sure what my eyes are telling him. I'm praying my eyes aren't mistakenly taking his for Spencer's.

"Um, well..."

Stuttering into oblivion, so different from my Spencer stutter, I frantically look for words. Any words, anything at all to answer this question and move on. Moving back to Spencer.

"Hey there..." And then her hand's on me, sitting low and hot on my back. Like a line casting herself out to me, so she can guide me back to shore. Guide me back to her. Guide me where I belong, "...you ready?"

Whispers right into my ear, like the little words are too sacred, too intimate for Aiden's ears.

And I'm blushing more than ever, as I whisper "Yeah", right back to her, right inside her. Giving her my sacred and my intimate. Slowly forgetting about any one else who might be in this parking lot, as my eyes flick toward her, threatening to flutter as those painting fingers draw softly over my too tight shirt.

"Hey it's Spencer, right?" But Aiden's clueless voice breaks us from our moment. From our world, finding him looking at us so easily, so unaffected, until his eyes suddenly change, finally looking at both of us, like we were a whole, like we belong in a world outside his. And maybe now he understands whose eyes belong with who, "Um, I'm - I'm Aiden."

But he coughs as he says this, showing off his discomfort. Displaying his understanding of the situation. His grasping the two of us, seeing us whole, proving how much experience he has. Proving what little perception I actually have. Because what he's picked up on in thirty seconds I'm still trying to figure out.

"Yeah, I know who you are." Coolly falls from Spencer's lips, icing over this entire scene, even though her hand is still burning a hole in my back. Burning a branding stamp on my heart.

"Yeah, uh, well I guess I'll see you guys in class."

Aiden mumbles, beyond uncomfortable, beyond frozen from Spencer's icy glare, and I can't help but feel bad for the guy. I can't help but squint at him as he stumbles away from us. Not even waiting to hear us say goodbye.

"Man, I really don't like that kid." Spencer huffs, so put off, so out of character, making me forget about any pity or sympathy for Aiden [or anyone, bringing me to only see her, only feel her, looking at her, quizzically, "...He's totally sketchy. I mean, you get that vibe from him too, right?"

Her eyes desperately cling to mine, so much hidden behind the blue, so much I can't read, some much I long to understand as she begs for me to agree. Begs for my approval. And I wish I could give her that, I wish I could give her everything, let alone something she so clearly believes in. But I can't. I can't because I didn't get that vibe from him. Not really. Not that much. Not at all.

I didn't get anything from him but a sense of _me_. And how could I bag that when I'm finally starting to accept it?

"Well, I don't know..." Searching down at the pavement between our close feet, like I'm searching for something to hold onto, like I know this is not gonna go over well, "...He doesn't seem that bad."

"That bad?!" Spencer is clearly not having it, yelping into the space between us, so disbelieving, so ridiculously disbelieving, and I'm starting to get confused. Because really he's not that bad, really he's no different from me, with his black backpack and humble eyes. And maybe she sees my confusion, my suspicion, cause something changes in her face, "...Ok. Fine. I guess he's not _that_ bad..." Insert healthy eye roll, here "...or whatever."

For some reason, I can't help but smile back at her. Like I were the one proud now. Like I were so happy to hear her playing along, but playing nice. And it looks like she knows it, looks like despite herself, she can't help catching my pride.

"So where's your dad again?"

"Oh, actually, both he and my mom are out today. It's their anniversary and they go on this trip down to San Diego every year for it. So yeah, they're both gone."

I'm still so clueless as I mumble these dangerous words. Not even realizing the heaviness in their meaning, not until I hear Spencer's delectable voice. Not until it pushes inside me, pushes every bit of the heavy.

"So wait, they're both gone? Like gone gone? For the whole weekend?" Suddenly, like a kid on Christmas morning, her eyes widen in delight. In complete unadulterated delight, and I'm just starting to see the agenda in the blue, the smirk in the suggestion, "...and you seriously think we're not gonna ditch?? Oh Shady, You may be good, but you're not _that_ good..." My stomach twists inside her crooked crafty grin, twists so unbelievably good, "...especially when you're with me."

"But, I - I'm, uh..."

And I'm not talking any more. I'm not mumbling, stuttering, or looking for a way out. I'm only looking for a way in, because her hand's softly tied inside mine. Because she's gently threading our fumbling fingers together, somehow pulling me closer to her, feeling our shoulders bump briefly. Bringing my eyes to look into hers, so far and so deep, feeling like I could lose myself there. Feeling like it's the first time. Feeling the butterflies flying free deep inside me.

"Come with me, Ash." Feels like falling, so hard and so fast, as she leans into my ear, whispering her intimacy right _there_, so far inside me, "...please, come be with me."

And as I finally chance looking into her eyes, chance falling and drowning inside them, I can't help but smile. I can't help but nod. Because it doesn't feel like falling anymore. Standing beside her with an open road weekend before us, doesn't feel scary or cliche. It only feels safe. It only feels right.

Because her hand inside mine only feels like freedom.

--------

Spencer's barely covered body sits, gorgeously, on her pool's cement edge, legs draped in the cool water, idly kicking and splashing. And I'm watching it all from behind a sliding glass door. From outside a silly glass case, waiting for my moment to break inside it. Waiting for my moment to break inside hers.

Still waiting as I stand here, looking at her looking like such a little kid inside such a contradicting bikini. Looking so innocent while she wears a single thread. Feeling so open and bare inside this bathing suit. A bathing suit that both belongs to Spencer and fits Spencer, better than it could ever fit me.

But I had no other choice, this simple black bikini [the first bikini I've ever worn was what she chose for me. What she tossed to me, as she skipped out her back door, casually calling over her shoulder, voice airy and suggestive, "hurry up so we can play."

I never thought such an innocent word like 'play' could be so dirty. Could have me stalling and stuttering behind a glass wall. All by myself. Clinging to my own transparent reflection for comfort and relief.

It's when I stumble upon this realization, the one involving me relying so much on my own apparition, that gets me to finally collect my clothes and timidly leave this glass case. Sliding open that door, hearing the swoosh and the squeak. Hearing it blare my presence more than I ever wanted, more than I'll ever want. Because I've never been one to make an appearance, especially when I'm wearing something close to nothing.

Especially when I'm making an appearance for _her_.

And suddenly she stops kicking. She stops splashing. Stops everything, like she needs all her senses for this. For me. Wanting nothing to break this moment where she sees me like she's never seen me before. Without that pathetic t-shirt holding me captive. Without having to come to my rescue.

Finally seeing me when she has the right to stare.

And she is staring. Staring and piercing as I tremble my way around the pools curved edge, bundle of clothes held against my chest. Bunched and pinched between my shaking hands, as if they could protect me. Could shield me from her icy eyes chilling inside me. Warming me up. Setting me on fire.

"Wow. That...that looks _so_ good on you..." Distantly dribbles and breathes from her mouth, eyes never leaving my body, hopping and dancing over every inch of my skin, like she were singing me inside her memory, like she were allowed to, and I feel a shiver run down my spine when I realize she _is_ allowed to, "...it looks perfect. You look perfect."

My ears are ringing with such a statement. A statement I'm barely positive she said. Hardly certain she uttered the words "you" and "perfect" in the same sentence while talking about me. And I really don't know what to believe, how to react, with spotlight eyes and perfect words dancing from her to me, so I only whisper "Thanks". Whispering it so softly toward her, hoping it's enough.

She doesn't say anything. Not one word. Like she knows what a nuisance words can be, what a nuisance they've become, like smiles and eyes can say so much more. Like our lips and looks have said more than we've ever heard. Said more than we've ever hoped.

So she smiles, so sweetly that I almost lose my breath. I almost lose it all as I stand practically naked before this girl with her honey hair and her eyes bluer than the pool glimmering before us.

"Come sit with me." Still whispering, because maybe _she's_ breathless too, she pats the spot beside her and for one brief moment a vision of all those little girls from so long ago flies before me. All those girls my age who smiled into each others ears. Whispering secrets and plans while I just watched from the outside never knowing a thing about the inside. About inclusion.

Never until now. Hopeless until today. Finding everything with her.

"Ok."

But I'm still whispering as I timidly sit beside her, still speaking so softly, like I were afraid of waking up. Like I were so afraid of shattering such a perfect setting.

"Hey _you_."

And as she rasps the words, the words she's rasped so many other times before, I feel something lodge in my throat. Something so big and hearty because this time she rasps it like never before. This time she rasps progression. She rasps life changing. Finally feeling the things that are happening right now, right in this moment, and understanding they'll never go back.

Life is already so far, too far, from what it once was to ever go back.

"Hey." My voice suddenly putters off, losing itself somewhere so far away from me, falling inside my life changed. Watching as she leans over to dip her hands down to her arms into the crisp water, sneakily looking back at me, but I'm not looking back at her. My eyes are trained solely on the small of her back. On her mystery tattoo, suddenly wishing so badly to trace it with my talentless fingers, just to feel her. Like maybe I'd learn something. Like maybe I'd gain a piece of her, inside of me, forever.

But the next thing I know, the next thing I feel, is crisp coldness. Sharp boldness. Water surrounding me, engulfing me, draping me in freshness. Dressing me in freedom. Feeling like it's been so long since I last fell from any heights. Feeling like maybe it's beyond so long.

Feeling like maybe it's the first time I've ever fallen.

When I resurface, weirdly gasping for air, I immediately hear Spencer's adorable giggling. So close, so near, so much like falling, like she were tangled up in me. And when I open my eyes, quickly pulling my hair from its tight bun, letting it fall heavily onto my shoulders, seeking strange release, I find her _right_ there. So close to tangling me inside her.

And _I'm_ so close to letting her.

"Sorry, I just couldn't resist." Puffs from her wet wet lips, seeing the way she blinks water from her eyes, hearing the exaltations in her words, her confounding breathlessness reflecting mine.

"Oh, I'm so sure you're sorry." If I were afraid of waking myself up before, I'm blinking myself awake now. Barely able to comprehend my boldness, briefly wondering if the chlorine I'm swimming in has rubbed off on me. Has given me its strength.

"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Slowly she breaches the small gap between us, literally tying us together, threading our slippery legs, and I almost want to die. I almost believe I have, because this sensation is beyond anything I've ever felt, beyond anything I can possibly comprehend, because how can two people float so easily together, so weightlessly, dancing like we were in mid air, "...I could _never_ apologize for having _you_ here..." Eyes still blinking, but I don't think it's because of the water, she licks her wet lips, as if they were dry, "...when you're right _here_ with me."

I don't know what to say. I don't know if I even have a word left inside me to be muttered. My crashing heart drumming inside my fragile chest just won't allow it, won't allow anything but looks and lips. Eyes and smiles.

"You really have no idea how pretty you are, do you?" But it's her eyes and smiles that fill up my face, that fill me up inside, saying these words like there's nothing she believes more. Like she's been waiting for so long to say them. Waiting since the first day, and as she lifts a tentative hand from my rubbery skin beneath the chlorine, slowly moving it to my sun lit face, tenderly brushing a damp damp curl from my face, she puffs "...So pretty..." Puffs and breathes it so heavy that it sinks right inside my skin, breaks right through my surface.

Breaks straight through _my_ locks.

Suddenly, I feel my hands wrapping around her, wrapping her closer to me, unable to help it. Hoping _she_ feels how much _I_ feel it. Hoping as I lift myself higher above water, fumbling with her legs for leverage, that she feels my bravery, my big girl thoughts, as I wetly press a little girl kiss into her soft forehead.

Hoping it reaches her heart.

Sealing her with _my_ promise of things to come. Giving her my tomorrows, giving her my everything, whether she knows it or not. But I think she does know it, I think she's always known it, because now she's holding me against her. Hugging me with legs and arms and eyes and smiles. Hugging me with what feels like so much freedom.

And as I suddenly wrap myself around her, around her falling heart, finally give her my intimacies, whispering my world through a shaky "thank you" right inside her ear, straight inside her heart, it feels like so much more than freedom.

My body clinging to hers, breathless and bound, feels more like letting go.


	11. The Waiting

Sprawled across one massive beach towel, Spencer and I lay together over the green green grass of her back yard. Separately, we lay as one, pool phantom limbs still tied and still feeling. A chlorine blanket coating our hot skin, sticking and sharpening us. Shaping us inside the late afternoon sun soaking and drowning us in its warmth. Wrapping around our sun-spent bodies better than any towel. Cementing memories of legs tangled and bodies hugged straight into our skin, like childhood tracings on sunny sidewalks.

Laying on my back, content just to face the sky and the sun and what feels like open possibility. It's been so long since I faced this way. So long since I faced anything at all.

"Man..." Spencer's voice calls to my eyes squinting into the sun, calls them to squint into hers, finding myself facing _the_ possibility, the biggest one, the _only_ one, "...wouldn't it be so awesome if we could just stay like this. All day..." My smile quirks with her words, with her dimpled smile, "...Forever, even."

"Yeah..." I find myself distantly nodding, but I'm nowhere near distant, I'm nowhere but right here, never closer, never more aware, never more alive, "...it would."

Her eyes stay with mine, lassoing me with the tightest rope, easily turning me to face her, because how could I ever resist her pull? How could I ever turn her down when she's constantly turning me out? When she's turning and twisting, perfectly tuning me. Tuning me to a key that meshes and molds and plays with hers. That feels like a slow collision.

The sweetest collision, bending our lives together in utter harmony.

This day has been like no other, feeling like a different person lying in a different body inside _her_ bathing suit. Lying in her world. Feeling like that little girl's good girl life is slipping away, so far away. Slowly sliding into something more dangerous. More evolved. More real.

Because soft and easy smiles are morphing, growing into so much more than lips and teeth and tongues. Bigger and harder sentences are writing themselves between pursed lips. Our antsy lips that wish to do so much more than say such measly words and bother with little letters that hardly convey an ounce of the feeling behind our tongues. Our tongues hiding behind teeth, wishing to do so much more than roll and twist and turn on their own. Wishing for another. Wishing for her and those bright eyes, hot lips, and warm hands.

Warm hands wishing to do so much more than just gently hold. So much more.

Suddenly things feel like waiting. After my promising forehead kiss from hours ago, things feel like limbo. Like we're just two people just passing the minutes and seconds till something more happens. Till something that's _supposed_ to happen happens. It's such a strange feeling, waiting for something you want, for something you know _will_ eventually happen. It only makes me wonder what we're waiting for.

"Did you have fun today?"

She whispers, closer than I remember, opening my eyes, never remembering them closed, finding her face right _there_, eyes bluer than reality. Suddenly the wait feels completely right. Suddenly the wait is the most logical thing ever. Because it's so safe. Because if we stop waiting, that blue will bleed into shades I've never seen, never knew, and am not ready for.

"Definitely. I've had a lot of fun..." But I am ready for this, I am ready for the in between, for the passing seconds, minutes, hours, just living next to her, beside her, seeing a smile on her face that reflects nothing but security, "...Thank you for inviting me."

"No problem." She whispers, softly, soothingly, leaning just slightly closer to me, and suddenly the cool afternoon sun doesn't feel so cool. Doesn't feel nearly as hot as this girl before me, with her angel eyes and devil smile. With her everything aimed straight at me.

A girl with everything, that's Spencer. I know it now more than ever, without even knowing a thing about her. And that's been ok, that's been fine. I've been getting by on just the present with her, because her presence is all I've ever wanted. All I've ever needed.

But today, with a sky of possibilities above me, and a smile of even bigger possibilities before me, I wish for more than just the present. Even more than the future. I wish for her past. I wish for her birthday, her favorite toy, her first dog, her childhood, her everything.

"What was your old school like?"

I gulp and sigh all at once, unimpressed and relieved with my bluntness. Scared for having my curiosity out there. Never feeling better for having finally asked.

She looks neutral, squinting her eyes open, before rolling them, "Boring."

Biting my lip, I try to get more comfortable, testing these reality waters, gliding my timid fingers over the murky crisp edge, "How so?"

She sighs, looking like she knows I'm prying, but looking like she knows I deserve it. Looking like she's been waiting for this moment, "Well, take the smallest student body ever mixed with a catholic boarding school in the middle of Ohio..." She smirks toward me, "...also known as the middle of nowhere..." One beat, eyes holding eyes, "...and you've got a tedious result."

I nod, as if I understand, as if I know a thing about what she's talking about, because maybe I do, maybe isolation is a universal language, maybe schools and student bodies fade a person away all the same, "Why'd you go there?" Tongue stalling and lips flailing, I try back pedaling, making up for my necessary brashness, "...I mean boarding school. Why would you go there if your family lived close by?"

Laughter falls from her lips, but it doesn't feel funny, "Oh I'm not from Ohio. We grew up in Manhattan. It was the perfect place for mom's job, you know, with her 'brilliance' and all..." Mocking air quotes fit inside her words, as she gives me a quick glance, like maybe she's making sure I'm still following, but something tells me she's really hoping I'm nowhere near her, "...I didn't mind, though. I loved the city..." Glancing at that big open sky, the one that doesn't look like possibility in her eyes, looks more like regret, "...I miss the city."

I've never been, never even thought of things on the other side of this country. I'm still searching for things on the other side of a window. I'm still working on things outside of glass walls.

"So why go to school in Ohio?" I shift, feeling uncomfortable, feeling so guilty for being so ridiculously nosy, but not feeling guilty at all, and it's her silence that urges me on, "...if you don't mind me asking."

Once again she laughs, and it feels like a cloud covering the sky. A cloud covering our sun soaked bodies, cooling the air around us. I'm not sure I like it.

"It wasn't my choice, wasn't my brother's either. My, uh, my father went there, so..." Her eyes drift down between us, fazing and blurring, looking like I do without my glasses, looking lost and alone, as she just trails off. Leaving the vagueness between us like it were up to me to fill in the details all on my own.

"What's he like?" I find myself asking, without even knowing it, forgetting that _I_ was supposed to fill in the blanks on my own because I very rarely figure out _anything_ on my own. Her eyes question mine, like she were about to ask who, so I cut her off, "...your dad, what's he like?"

Silence. No laughter, no bitterness, no sunshine. Nothing. And then she sighs. So sadly, so pathetically, like she's trying so hard to keep up these walls, when all she wants to do is let them fall. Let it all fall so she can lean closer to my body, so she can look up at that possible sky with me beside her, instead of searching through a hopeless one by herself.

But she stays where she is, still trying to find the hope within hopelessness.

"I don't know. He and my mom divorced about five years ago and I haven't really seen him since." Eyes slide over my shoulder, searching through so much hopelessness, "...But it feels longer than that, since I last saw him. Feels like forever..." Her fingers pick and pick absently at the soft cloth, marring the threads, marring the value, "...he's a musician. Classical pianist. So he's always touring and stuff." As if she thinks I were about to gush or ask about how famous he is (which I wasn't), she moves to cut me off, "...He's not like famous or anything. Which is funny because he'd tell you differently. He'd tell you he were the best musician out there, and how he's just not getting the recognition he deserves. But if you ask me? He's getting more than he deserves. You know that expression, a legend in your own mind? Well that's him. Actually, that's who he's been for as long as I can remember..." She briefly looks to me, connecting, perhaps needing a little bit of _my_ possibility, "...How sad is that? Even as a kid I knew my dad was an asshole..." She laughs, bitterly, sourly, painting such a pretty and perfect day in such sad staleness "...And he was _always_ jealous of mom. Like all the freaking time. I guess he thought she got too much attention. She got what belonged to him."

She stops short, as if that were all she has to give me. For now. Forever, maybe. And it's silent for so long, neither one of us knowing what to say. Knowing what to do. And while the quiet is always so safe between us, while I normally love it, right now this quiet feels like teetering. Like tip toeing across a thin straight line, and I _know_ I don't like it. Because she's all the way up there, out on that wire. And I'm all the way down here, on the ground.

I'm searching through hopelessness, just watching her flail and fledge.

"So you left your school cause it was too boring?" My lips smile sweetly, hoping to derail the conversation. Hoping to bring her possibility, hoping to slide back into the present, "...It was just too dull for someone as bright as you?"

I put on my best brave face, sucking in a lungful of air, borrowing some from that big sky above me. Hoping she appreciates my words, appreciates my compliment. But she doesn't really look like anything at all. She doesn't look like anything I've ever known, with her eyes glancing over my shoulder, she looks like her past. Like the the person she was before she knew me.

And suddenly I wonder why I ever wanted to know that girl when _this_ girl is right before me.

"Something like that..." But then her eyes change, like a clap of thunder, she stops fazing and blurring, looking straight at me like a present, giving me her gifted eyes, bluer than every ocean combined, "...but I'm starting to think it was so I could meet someone as bright as you, Shady."

And suddenly I have everything I've ever wanted. All I've ever needed. I have her, and I'm starting to believe she's the only person that matters. That possibly ever will.

We fall back into our past pretty world, with late sunshine and chlorined bodies lying so close together, remembering limbs tied and threaded, with kissed promises.

Remembering so much as her hand fidgets on those precious threads, never looking softer or more valuable, before her fingers crawl the small distance between us. Crawl and crawl, floating up to my face breathing onto hers. Hand suspended in mid air, right before my cheek, she smiles so sweetly at me, like she were letting me know nothing bad is going to happen. Like maybe nothing bad will ever happen, as her fingers piece together my wayward curls, brushing them tenderly behind my ear, fitting them behind my glasses.

"Wanna go lay down in my room for a bit? Watch a movie?" A goofy but sneaky smile flits across her face, gracing her features like rays of sunlight, "...I bought the perfect one the other day. Just for _you_."

Biting my lip, I nod slowly. Wanting to draw out this moment, where her fingers thread through my damp hair, sending chills throughout my body, knowing my skin is goose bumping. But not caring. Not caring one bit, because it feels so good. Because her eyes on me feel like everything. Everything I could ever need or want, no longer thinking about regretful pasts.

Because with her loving eyes and gentle touch pushing inside me, all I feel is a hopeful future.

The credits for Forrest Gump roll on and on, painting Spencer's bare walls in flickers of light. Painting Spencer's snoozing body so close to mine in tranquility. She passed out when Lieutenant Dan first showed up. When the sun still peeked its way through the blinds, striping her walls in hot orange. Striping us both in partial darkness, partial safety, making her body inching closer to mine subtle. Making her breath puffing against my shoulder barely noticeable.

Oh but I noticed. I noticed every scorching breath like a stroke of fire across my heart.

Light snoring adorably leaves her small little body, as she sleeps on her side. As one tan arm almost lies across my pink one. As one leg comes so close to crawling over both of mine, close to holding me captive here. On my back. In her bed.

My cheeks flush and flush, drowning me in so many visions. So many smiles and smirks and sounds. Lost inside so many thoughts, little big girl thoughts. Lost until she finds me, shuffling closer, shuffling up the bed, leaving her body pressed to mine. Leaving her face right beside mine. Leaving me to actually _see_ the perfect vision.

Her golden cheeks are flushed, pink from the days sun and heat, pink from maybe even me. Lips parted and quirked, like even in dreams she can't help but smile. Like even in dreams maybe she sees me.

Eyes hopping and jumping, living a life behind closed lids, I feel so safe just looking at her. Only her. Drinking her in, just sipping in every curve and dip on her face. Every laughing line, every smiling dimple. Drawing it inside my mind's sketch pad, pinning it to my bulletin board memory.

Fingers that don't belong to me, but _do_ belong to me, find their way to her dream like face. Find their way to a golden hair line, tracing it like that reality waters edge, lightly grazing across such soft skin. Drawing down to shadows living beneath her jaw, idly sliding from an ear to her chin, back and forth. Back and forth. Memorizing myself with the softness, with the warmth, with the freedom.

And then there's so much more softness, so much more warmth, and heartbreaking freedom. There's her hand over mine, and dazed blue eyes focusing straight inside my muddied brown. Looking lost inside her dreams still, looking like maybe she's still seeing me in safe places.

"Shady." Breathes like those fiery puffs from before, lighting so much more than my heart on fire, as her hand, frozen behind mine, awkwardly but beautifully links our fingers. The color slides back inside her grey eyes, painting them brighter and brighter with each second. Barely seeing it from the light of Forrest Gump, barely seeing anything from the light of dreams inside myself. Wondering if this is really happening.

Wondering if I'm still alive as she brings our linked hands to her mouth, almost dying inside when her lips make contact. Feeling so awake as she holds me captive, holds me against her moist lips. Pressing such red love inside me. Pressing such delicacy into the palm of my hand, like it'll forever be there for me to feel. For me to always remember.

A series of light kisses seep inside so many patches of my warm skin, my blank skin, having never been touched before. Not like this. Not like anything. And she keeps going, drawing in breaths between each sizzling peck. Each twist and turn her devil lips make. Sucking me so far between them. Through the surface of my hand, she draws me inside the beating of her heart. And I think I might stay there forever.

I fear I may never leave her.

I would fall down in fright with that terrifying thought, I would run for the door with such a stark realization. I would anything if it weren't for Spencer's sleepy body hovering over me. Dopey smile on her face, like this were ok, like we've done this countless times before, as she slides her body over on top of mine. My body wearing her tiny gym shorts and thin beater tank top, doing nothing to keep things safe and innocent. Doing nothing to keep me from shivering at such heavy contact. Such relieving weight.

I feel so conflicted and contradicted. With her body half on top of mine, half hovering over mine, I feel tied down and released all at once. Her forearms hold her upper body above mine, while her heaven eyes look down on me. While she looks absolutely divine, beyond earthly, above me. She cannot be real, this vision, it must be another one of my big girl thoughts.

"This is much better." But then she whispers, that soft voice rasping down on me and through me, and I feel just how _real_ this is. Realizing dreams _do_ come true, they're just not the dreams childhood promises you, "...I like seeing your pretty face this close."

These dreams are better.

"Yeah."

Weakly, pathetically, squeaks from my affected lips, like her body resting over mine is too much to take. Too much to bare. But it's not the weight of her body pressing into mine that holds me down. It's the weight of reality. It's the weight of waiting winding down that's weighing in on me. Sucking the air and voice and coherency right out of me.

"I dreamt about you, you know. Just now, while I was asleep..." Voice stronger, but still soft, she seems more awake, and it makes me wonder what she's still doing on top of me. If she's outside of dreams why is she acting out mine, pretending we're both inside those safe places, "...and you know something?" Her eyes glaze over, looking at my cheeks, looking at my lips, looking at my vulnerability "...I still missed you. Seeing your face, feeling you, all I wanted was to wake up so I could see and feel _you_. Right here. Right now."

Her eyes are widening, like maybe she really believed we were both dream safe on top of this real bed.

"How is this happening, Ash? It's been barely two weeks, but sometimes I feel like...It feels like - like..." Ambiguity coats her words and eyes, but I see through them both. I see through to the truth and the certainty. I see the smiles she's pictured, and the beds she's imagined, and the big girl thoughts she can't stop thinking about. I see everything I've internally battled with buried inside her, making me feel somewhat calm. Somewhat relieved. Somewhat terrified.

"Forever..." Whispers, like such a little big girl, from my trembling lips, bringing her eyes to stare at me more intently, barely nodding like she can't believe I feel it too and I'm trying so hard to not mess up this moment, "...I don't know how it's happening..." Not wanting to break the wait, fearing the wait is forever, "...but I feel it too and I like it..." My heart beats so wildly, that I'm sure she feels it, I'm sure her body jumps with each thump, "...I, uh, really like it."

"Me too." I don't think she's ever smiled so wide, looking so much like the wait is over. With her body above mine, closer than before, feeling so much like a big blue summer sky, filled with hope and possibility. Filled with eternity and forever.

"You are so beautiful." Barely breaks inside a breath, as her fingers move up to my hot cheeks, circling and painting, leaving nothing but light inside my fluttering heart. My fluttering fingers, holding onto her hips, never realizing how small and tiny her body really is. Never realizing a girl's frame could feel so strong. Could be made up of so much fragile and so much soft and so much _perfect_.

"You - you are too." Trickles like a waterfall from my lips, solely for my bravery, solely for my courage, solely for the way her chest meets mine. The way our bodies connect, tied and tangled like the pool, but nothing like the pool. This time our bodies cement us in time and reality, no longer dancing or floating, but engraved in sidewalk. Engraved in bed sheets and covers, leaving our mark to never be flushed away.

Suddenly time spirals and walls cave, stopping the world for unknown seconds, minutes, as her lips lightly fall onto my cheek. Gently kissing a path across the bone, below my black frames. A path down to just the right of my mouth, over the tip of my nose, and between my eyes. Delicately and gingerly pressing her want into such innocent skin, such safe places.

My places.

Safe until she pulls away and looks into my eyes, through the dark, seeing the heady heavy desire there. Seeing it and feeling like maybe we really are floating, feeling like there's nothing grounding me. Even with her little body pinning mine down to her big bed, I feel like I'm losing myself in her, in this moment, in this life. Never to be found again.

And I'm too outside myself to care.

"Stay with me tonight." Flushes over my skin like the warmest scariest breeze. This time her invitation, her request, is so far from innocent. So far from childish. So far from safety.

But I'm so far from myself, I don't even care. I'm too close to me, to her, to stop myself from nodding gently. From looking up into her bleeding blue eyes, whispering "Ok." Like I have no idea what she's asking. Like I have no idea what this sleepover might entail.

Like I still believe we're waiting.

"Spence??"

Suddenly Spencer tears herself off of me, in a blur, a whizzing breezing blur, leaving me so cold and alone on her big bed. Glen's voice ripping through this hallow house, reaching us inside it's fullest room.

"Shit!" Spencer seethes, flustered and flushed, moving to hit a light, moving to look at me, without any of the seething, "You have to get up." She whispers urgently and politely, but with unmistakable fear.

I don't even bother to argue or agree as she calls down to Glen, letting him know "We're up here!", as I jump out of bed. Standing and fixing my hair and my clothes (that are hers) while trying to find a piece of me. The piece I lost inside Spencer just seconds ago.

Glen's hurried footsteps reach us, and Spencer's turning on the tv, putting on some inane show, some cover up for the show we were just putting on for ourselves. All the while she won't look at me, not even glancing back at me as she paces and shuffles over her hard carpet. Like she were afraid of me. Like with one look she might lose herself.

Like it'd be forever.

"Hey." Glen mindlessly calls from behind the closed door, both of us breathing sighs of relief, thankful he's not opening that safety door "...I just wanted to let you know, since mom's working a double, I'm gonna have some people over from the team. Nothing too crazy."

Spencer finally looks back at me, looking timid and apologetic, while she calls back to Glen, calling to him like these words filter from her lips solely on auto pilot, "Yeah, ok, whatever."

"You're cool with that?"

"Yes, Glen. It's fine." Grits from her clamped teeth, clearly moving her lips to get him moving.

"Ok. You and, uh..." A moment of awkward silence falls over us "...Ashley, you guys should hang out for a little bit. I think it's gonna be fun."

"Whatever. Sure. Sounds good." The words fall from Spencer's lips with eyes looking like she never even knew she could build them, let alone speak them. But it no longer matters, cause Glen's walking down the hall again, far far away from us and this room full of thick tension.

The thickest tension I've ever felt.

After what feels like hours, Spencer slowly turns around, leaning her lead weight back onto a danger door. Timid eyes finding me from across the room, from across her eternity bed, a lamp light doing nothing to lift the heaviness between us. Both frozen in ourselves, in our dreams, in this reality, feeling this room thicker with tension. So thick it doesn't feel like it's gonna go anywhere.

Feels like it might stay forever.

And Spencer keeps staring, harder and heavier, words so lost on us. Lost on me, as I keep staring back, giving her everything she's giving me. Returning all her favors and smiles and big girl thoughts. Feeling the tension multiplying and layering. But this tension is changing.

This tension feels like waiting.

And with Spencer's eyes on me, hooded and inviting, this waiting feels like it's almost over. 


	12. Something Like Beautiful

Passing twisted minutes inside Spencer's closet, I ball my hands into tiny fists, such tiny little fists. Curling and clutching onto my fingers, such hopeless little fingers. Wearing an outfit made for someone else's body. Dressed in such pretty clothes fit for such a pretty body. For _her_ pretty body. 

"Do you need any help or anything?"

Spencer's warm voice calls, muffled and soft, from behind the closed door as I just keep balling and flexing and standing. Staring. Seeing myself reflected in the mirror before me. Seeing a person I do not recognize. There's a big girl there, a big girl staring back at me, wearing jeans that actually fit. Wearing a tank top that actually clings. Like it wants to hold a hand. Wants to link an eye. Like it _just_ wants to belong. Like it just wants _me_.

"Um, no, I - I got it."

Nervously, but strongly, leaves my foreign lips. Seeing them so red, red like fire. Red like Spencer. Eyes smoky, as if my flaming lips ashed them into something like beauty. Ashed them into something like Spencer. Because it _is_ like Spencer. Because I haven't gone home. Because I showered here. Because I needed something to wear.

Because maybe, in reality, all I wanted to wear was _her_.

So I stayed. I stuck around. Planted myself inside a thick room where tension from girls on top of girls inside big beds slowly thickened and swirled. Twirling those fidgeting girls into an awkward dance of avoidance. Shuffling and stuttering, finding a foggy way back inside their own worlds, just for a little bit, just for a safe while. Catching their bearings, holding onto their hearts, so hard and so strong, because someone might come along and take those hearts. Because it feels like someone already has taken them.

And I'm pretty sure she's the one with my heart. I'm pretty sure she's melting it into hers, and maybe I don't know how exactly to feel about that, but I'm pretty sure it's something good. Because I still stayed and I'm still here. All showered and washed up with the water Spencer uses every morning that makes her so beautiful. That maybe makes me so beautiful.

Because there's a girl in a mirror before me. A girl with hair Spencer straightened and a face Spencer make upped.

There's a girl that looks _so_ much like me. And she looks so beautiful.

So beautiful, like this closet were a machine and these clothes were tools and Spencer were a maker. A crafter and creator, to paint me into something like beautiful. To draw me into something like myself. An artist to straighten my lines. A welder to meld my loose ends.

A guide to safely lead me straight into her world, carefully pushing and locking me inside _the_ machine.

So I could find my armor. So I could choose my outer beauty, all on my own. Crafting myself inside her craft, inside her beauty. Finding my own piece of mind. Finding a piece of _me_ inside this world that is hers. That could be ours.

Ours maybe someday.

And what I've found is a girl. Such a brave little girl standing before me with her little fingers and little hands. Seeing her through a fun house mirror, through a reflection I do not recognize. Looking like such a stranger with her straight long hair and painted eyes and burning lips.

Looking so much like me.

Taking a deep deep breath, inhaling her life, hoping it sparks the life dwelling inside me, I finally, shakily, reach for the door. Ready to leave this machine closet and brace the world. Ready to break inside _my_ world.

"So you're sure you..." Spencer absently looks up from a CD as she hears me entering this world, such a possible little world, "...you're, uh, sure you..." eyes catching mine, linking and holding, voice trickling and fading away like a distant memory, "...I mean you don't mind if we just, um, we..." She's fumbling and mumbling, facing me facing her, with all my new edges, with all these broad lines. And she keeps trailing and echoing and grasping for her words, like she's grasping for a piece of the world to hold on to. Grasping for something like beautiful.

Grasping for me because maybe I'm something like beautiful.

And through this night's nerves and the wait that's almost over and those bodies on top of bodies on top of beds from hours before, I can't help but smile with my ruby mouth and my piercing eyes. Through a jittery smile and chattering teeth and sweaty fingers, I can't help giving _her_ my everything. Answering her question without hearing it, subsiding her fears without fully knowing them.

"I don't mind hanging downstairs with your brother for a little bit..." She's still not seeing me, even though she's looking at me, she's still nowhere near catching me. Her eyes are still searching and reaching and just pleading for a place to call home, for a place to call safety, for a place like maybe me. So I reach for her with my eyes that suddenly feel so much like hers, speaking words that must have been crafted inside a closet somewhere, "...as long as you're there, I'm happy."

Gaping and floating, her lips look for words, look for tangible, until they let themselves just float away. Until they let themselves just _be_, no longer looking, no longer searching. Only smiling. Reflecting a smile that's crossing my very face. Matching the one _she_ drew there a lifetime ago.

"Ok." Softly rasps from her lips, as she keeps standing and flexing and staring, tiny little breaths puttering from her pretty body. Feeling myself doing the exact same, all the tension from before somehow intensifying with us both back on our opposite sides of her bed. Standing so far apart, like there's a river of feeling, desire, and passion rushing between us, brushing our finger tips, trying to pull us in.

And then she dives in, kind of, slowly walking over to me. Tossing a no name cd onto her forever bed, strolling strides with only _my_ name on them. Feeling my breath hitching softly, so very softly, as she nears me. As she stands before me, hardly a fraction of space between us. Or maybe it just feels that way.

"There are no words..." Love lips whisper her breaking words as her eyes stay straight inside mine, "...for how beautiful you look, Shady."

I think I might pass out from such a flush overdose, I think I might just slip inside that rushing river of passion, never to see the real world again. Never to breathe such bitter air again. But then she smiles. Smiles like such a little girl who's just whispering sweetness inside me. Who just wants to hold my hands and my secrets and my eyes and nothing more. Like there's only innocence inside that rushing river, and it makes me feel safe. It makes me believe it's ok to slide so far inside the warm water.

"You too. I mean, you, uh, look really, um..." But I guess safety doesn't negate insufferable stuttering, as I try and breathe in bitter air and real life so I can give her a piecer of me to hold onto, "...You look really beautiful too."

She smiles even wider, thoroughly amused by my fumbling and shuffling, and it lightens the mood. It cuts through the tension, and even though it cuts like a butter knife, things feel better. Things feel like a big blue summer sky.

"Thirty minutes tops. Then it's you and me and, I don't know," Spencer's smile quirks in mischief, or maybe fear, "...movie?"

Suddenly "movie" sounds like code, sounds like Spanish, sounds like all these words I'll never understand. But through a spreading smile, I try so hard to learn the words. Through a bleeding heart, I work even harder to speak them.

"Yeah. I'd like that. I'd really like that."

But maybe I do understand them, maybe I can speak words like Spencer, because there's joy tugging at her lips. There's happiness filling her face.

Falling onto mine.

"Alright then. Let's do this."

Chirping with some strange sense of enthusiasm, like nervousness, like a cover up, Spencer leads the way, walking us out of her bedroom [that's starting to feel so much like mine as our hands bump and collide, painting such beautiful teasing friction inside our tensing hearts. So much so, I feel like I might just die from the overdose. I might just collapse inside the flush and the flood and the river between us.

But as we walk down her hallway, so close like burning, Spencer softly grabs my hand, like she's looking for something to hold onto, like she's looking for a piece of me, as she softly whispers "You and me, Shady..." Warm, warm breath scorching in my ear "...you and me."

And suddenly it feels like there's not an ounce of water between us.

There's not even a drop.

There's only a fire.

And that fire feels something like us. 


	13. All The Corners

The faint sound of running water reaches me like a light as I sit on my bedroom floor. Finds me from the bathroom down the hall where Spencer gets ready for bed, fully taking her time, and it makes me wonder, makes me believe, maybe she's getting ready for _me_. Just me, as I sit here crossed legged and antsy. Fingers tying and turning, feeling my stomach heavy and light all at once. Tying myself into something like patience and bravery, as I wait for her. Waiting for her to just come back and sit down with me again. Sit down beside me and across from me, as she stares at me like she were already _inside_ me.

Sighing such a deep burdened hopeful breath, I twist and turn some more.

This is not how I thought the night was going to go. This is not how I pictured this night at all. I never imagined a "movie" code to actually mean Spencer and me sitting close together on my bedroom floor. Telling tales and secrets with our eyes, not our lips, while we sit cross legged like little girls on top of a rug that holds my childhood. That holds my memories of what was. That hides my dreams of what would never be.

Never until now.

--------

_  
The small get together Glen promised us is anything but small, anything but average. This party is like nothing I've ever seen, looking like something straight out of a teen movie. There are kids everywhere, absolutely everywhere, making me feel like I've never seen them and it's strange because I **have** seen them. Every day. I've known and recognized and felt every one of these kids as they walked past me inside the long hallways of school. Brushing by me without ever seeing me, like I weren't even there, because maybe I wasn't. Maybe I've always been too small. Maybe I've been such a little girl, too little for such big girls and boys to notice._

But tonight feels different. Feels like maybe I've grown up since this morning. Maybe I've come a lifetime since yesterday where those big kids walked right past me, sometimes even through me, because tonight the big kids are different. The big kids aren't walking past me or through me or beside me. No, tonight in Spencer's house, inside Spencer's clothes, those kids have stopped walking. They've stopped everything, right before me, like they need the moment or something. Like they've never seen me before. Like they could never even glance away from me, let alone walk over me.

And I don't know how I feel about that.

I don't know how I feel about introducing myself to boys I've known since the days of pigtails and overalls. All those boys who used to stand out in their bright corners, snickering and pointing, speaking words about me while I stood in my darkness. Words I never understood then, and probably pathetically still don't understand. Or maybe I've never wanted to understand.

Tonight, I don't know how I feel about those boys sneaking in their dark corners, smirking and staring and whispering words about me in sudden brightness. Words I just can't understand. Or maybe I still don't want to understand.

Spencer's body moves just a smidgen closer to me, but it feels like she's leapt miles. It feels like she's sitting in my lap, and glancing surreptitiously to my right, I see that she practically is. I see that there is not a breath of air between us, as we sit squished together on her living room sofa. The same big sofa that felt so much like possibility so long ago, on that first day. On that fateful Monday where we were just two strangers, just two girls slowly coming together, while talking about homes and fitting in.

And I think maybe, just maybe, we found both on that day, sitting together on a sofa. A sofa made up of possibility, home, and fitting in.

"You ok?" Spencer's breath trickles over my ear, so close and so warm, it makes me forget about big kids and dark boys and all the people who used to walk through me because this girl right next to me - this girl sees me and she feels me and reaches so far inside me, and she does it with barely a breath.

"Yeah..." I carefully glimpse toward her, so damn careful, because any closer would push us past waiting, would push us close to something like lips pressed to lips, "...I'm ok."

I try smiling, but it's kind of hard and I'm not sure why. It's not like I'm unhappy or sad or afraid (ok maybe I'm a little afraid) But it's such a strange feeling being noticed. It's such a strange feeling walking down a flight of stairs with all these eyes that used to roll right over you, only to see them looking right inside you. Like you suddenly matter. Like you suddenly stick out.

Like you're suddenly somebody, when you still feel like the nobody they've always neglected.

Careful in her own way, in a way that I'm desperately trying to understand, Spencer's hand softly and suddenly inches over my lap. Finger tips casually brushing over the denim ridges of **her** jeans. Idly sitting there, burning a hole in what might be her favorite pair of pants, as my eyes just look down on it. Watching and waiting and breathing hard, because I kind of know what she's doing. I kind of realize more than I probably understand, that her hand on my lap is just the first step toward her hand going to so many other places. It's just the first stop on a long short road that draws us closer. That draws us into one. And finally, with a soft breath, she takes the next step, makes the leap, gently grasping onto my hand. Holding onto it between our bodies, hidden in the shadows of how close we are.

And I wonder if Spencer has seen them. All those dark boys, I wonder if she's seen them in their dark corners and the way they shook my hand. The way they shook my body when their eyes crawled across it, trying so hard to break into my locks without my permission.

Spencer hugs my hand just a little harder, like she were protecting me, like she **has** seen them. Like she's seen all the mean boys hiding in all of my dark corners and all the hard words they've whispered about me. All the soft tears I've cried from all the hard words.

"What do you say, movie time?" Like a warm gentle hug, she whispers in my ear, and I wonder how it's possible that such small words can make a person feel so safe.

"Movie time?" Glancing to the side, feeling ridiculously fazed and unfocused, because proximity has always had that effect on me, no matter how far inside me she reaches or how safe her words make me feel.

And I think she knows it. I think she feels it. Because she laughs in such a safe way.

"Yeah. You wanna get out of here? I'm tired of this lame party..." Her hand squeezes mine, like a tap on my shoulder, like a finger beneath my chin, so I look back to her, straight into her eyes for the first time in what feels like far too long of a time, "...and in all honesty, why would I want to be with all these people when I can be with you..." Eyes coating my entire face and body in adoration, in impossible lightness, "...Just you..." And then she looks at me like she's looking straight into every one of **my** dark corners, like they belong to her, like she were in there with me too, and suddenly, draped in her warmth, it feels like she actually **is** in there with me, "...The best of them all. The best of everyone."

I can't stop smiling and I don't want to stop. I want to keep my lips this ridiculously wide and completely full, because I want her to know I **do** feel it. That I feel it **so** freaking much and maybe I'm tired of waiting. Maybe I can't wait any longer, because now my thumping heart feels like it's bloomed across my face, and is showing her every ounce of adoration I have for **her**. Like all the words she's ever given me have hit me like endless rays of sunshine. And now I'm shining those rays into **her** dark corners.

"Ok."

Tentatively, I whisper a breath of a word inside her ear, filling her and warming her like she's always done for me. Feeling my fingers bravely roaming over the back of her hand, feeling my face falling forward, just the slightest bit, like I were subconsciously moving toward lips pressed to lips. Because maybe, subconsciously, I need it. Because maybe I need it everywhere, in every conscious way, and maybe I need it bad. Maybe I need it **so** unbelievably bad.

"Ok." And she whispers right back inside me, between my lips, or maybe it just feels that way, because maybe she needs it too. Maybe she's falling into me as well with her fingers matching my stroking dance, rolling over my warm warm skin.

Slowly but strongly, our eyes lock and load with so much more than just glances. Lock with something called desire or maybe it's called passion. Or maybe it's just an insanely intense combination of both.

"I have to do something really quickly..." But she breaks it, like we need it, like we need a half time, because if we wait any longer than the wait's gonna be over. The rushing river between us is gonna catch us and pull us right inside it's far too warm waters, right on this very sofa in front of all these dark people smirking in dark corners, "...but I'll be right back."

And those waters should only rush inside **our** warm corners inside our bright hearts.

So when she smiles her promises and her time outs inside me, I have to smile back. Thankful for the break, thankful for the wait, as she leaves me with her words and her looks and her eyes that feel like they've always seen me. Like they've seen me long before tonight. Catching me when I was just one of those girls blended inside the hallway walls instead of one of the girls walking between them.

I find myself whispering "Ok" again, for a second time, but this time it feels like it means so much more. This time it feels like it's my own promise and it's one I'm giving to her. Even when I don't know what I'm giving her.

Even when I'm pretending I don't know **exactly** what I'm easily giving her.

She leaves me looking reluctant to leave, holding onto my hand for as long as she possibly can before she walks away from this big couch that feels even bigger with her gone.

Left all alone in a room full of people, I finally notice this party again, seeing all those cool kids. Watching them so wasted and obnoxious, falling over each other. Spilling anything and everything in their hands, right on to Spencer's pretty floor and pretty walls, marring this pretty house. And suddenly I wish not to notice those kids anymore. Suddenly they don't look so cool or perfect or noticeable.

They only look pathetic. And it's kind of strange, seeing that in someone, in everyone, you once thought meant so much more. It's actually really sad, seeing someone as they truly are instead of who they pretend to be.

"Mind if I join you?"

A very recognizable voice calls to me, finding one of those kids before me. Finding Aiden there, and for some reason, on this night, he looks different as well. But it's not like those other kids. No, tonight, Aiden looks like a bright boy in a bright corner who would never whisper strange words about me. He looks like a boy who would only see me, just me, and he would never try breaking into my locks. And maybe that's why I smile as I look up at him.

Maybe that's why I'm scooting over, giving us space because no one but Spencer should ever sit that close to me, as I whisper "Sure".

He looks happy, and maybe a bit surprised, by my answer as he plops down on the couch, maintaining his own distance, because maybe he knows this seat isn't for him. Maybe he knows there's always going to be a seat taken beside me, even if the space is empty.

We sit in silence that doesn't feel uncomfortable or comfortable, but just **is** what it is, as he holds a beer between his hands. Sitting there so casually, inside this packed party with so many dark corners, looking so natural. Looking like my father does some nights after dinner, as he leans back at the living room table, holding onto his own beer bottle. Holding it just like Aiden does. Like they're both meeting an old friend. Like they understand the meaning of that.

And I think sometimes I wish **I** knew how to hold a beer bottle.

"Don't worry, I won't stay here long..." Aiden's gentle voice breaks me from my thoughts, finding him looking at me so peculiarly, "...I'll just keep it warm till she gets back."

"Huh?" Somewhat confused, or maybe just needing to be, I ask him uneasily.

"Spencer. You guys were sitting here, right?"

"Oh, right..." I laugh, despite myself, and he does too, and I think it's cause we both appreciate the silence, I think we both appreciate each other's company because it keeps us from all those other kids, "...yeah, we were. But..." Biting my lip, unsure as to why I'm nervous, "...it's ok if you sit here."

He laughs at that, laughs strangely, like he doesn't believe it, like it's not ok if he sits here. And then I don't know what to do, because maybe it **isn't** ok for him to sit here, so close to me, in a place that belongs to Spencer.

"So you and Spencer..." This time he lets the words trail away, waiting for me to fill in the blanks, but I've never been good at that and this time is no different, so I look to him blankly, so unsure as to what he's getting at (but maybe I'm a little bit sure as to what he's getting at) "...you guys are pretty close."

He finishes with a deep breath, like a cop out, and it makes me nervous. Makes me stumble and trip on my own words, "Um, well, yeah...I guess."

My fingers tie to themselves, immediately missing Spencer's, and it makes me realize just how right Aiden is. It makes me realize just how close Spencer and I really are and how much closer I wish we were. How much closer we might become. After tonight.

And now I'm more nervous than ever.

"She seems really nice." Aiden looks down on his bottle, like a best friend, and I suddenly forget about those nerves, I suddenly have to laugh because Spencer hasn't been very nice at all, not to him, not to anyone, just to me, and then he laughs too. Like he's catching it from me, because maybe he knows just what I'm thinking, "...well she seems really nice to you."

And I guess he did know what I was thinking, because maybe it's just the truth. Maybe it's just what it is, and it doesn't matter what any one thinks of it, because that's just how life goes. So we both sit there in the truth, that might mean different things for both of us, as we laugh together, feeling our laughter all the same.

"I've seen the way she looks at you though..." His voice is so beyond soft now, done with laughing through the truth, done with laughing in general, because all he wants to speak is crystal clear honesty, "...I've noticed since she first got here. She looked at you like there was no one else to look at..." His cheeks look redder than before, redder than ever, before he turns to me quickly, carefully, in the same way I looked at Spencer when she was so close, "...I'm sorry if that's weird or creepy for me to say, but I just thought..." He shakes his head "...I don't know, I just thought if someone were looking at me that way, I'd want to know about it. Especially if I were looking at them the same way."

He's laughing again, looking down on his friend between his hands, and now he's drinking that friend, and I wonder if he's drunk. I wonder if he's embarrassed. Because I really hope he's not, embarrassed that is. I hope he's not ashamed for making me smile so wide. For making my cheeks flame pink. For making my night on a night that's already pretty much the best one of my life.

"Thank you."

So I make sure he knows what he's done, whispering to him, crossing my fingers, twisting and turning, because I'm not really sure what someone should do when they've been told such beautiful words. When they've been given such achingly beautiful words about an even more beautiful girl who's been looking at **you**.

Who's been looking for awhile now.

"It's just the truth." And now he's looking at me again, but he's looking funny, he's looking at me like I were a bottle between his hands and he were needing me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, I don't think I want to be something he needs like that, "...you're both lucky."

"Yeah."

There's nothing more I can say about that, not much more I want to say about that, doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel appropriate with him sitting in Spencer's seat next to me still sitting in mine while Spencer's off somewhere that feels far away. Too far away. And I wish Spencer were here again. I wish she were looking at me while I look at her, because now I know we're looking the same.

"Hey there." And then she's here. Standing above me and beside me and before me and through me, like she could hear me from across the room, from across this house, from across hours and minutes and space and time, leaving me to believe no place is too far for her to find me, "...You ready?"

She doesn't even acknowledge or even look to Aiden, only looks to me (like I really **were** the only thing to look at), and I don't blink an eye before I take the hand she's extending toward me.

"Definitely." We smile at each other, and I hear Aiden laughing, like he knows what's going on, like he were inside our world, and I don't like it because I never invited him in here. Because this corner is one meant for only Spencer and me.

Maybe Spencer knows it too, maybe Spencer can't stand Aiden sitting in seats that belong to her, telling me things about where she's looking, because she's walking faster now, looking like she really wants to say something. Looking like she's biting her tongue. But she doesn't say anything. She just keeps pulling us as she walks us away from him, away from all of them, thankfully taking us away from all the darkness inside such a full party.

Leading us toward the light.

Slowly we bound the stairs to her bedroom, hands still linked and tied and promising, feeling like so much possibility rests behind her door. Feeling like this is where the night truly begins. Feeling like it all starts now, until she whispers into my ear. Until she softly, somewhat hesitantly, asks "Is it ok if we watch a movie at your house instead?"

And I don't even wait a second before I nod yes. Finding myself wanting nothing more than to go back to my house. Because I know the night will be so much brighter there. Because that small house, so far away from this dark full mansion, is a big bright corner on a street called Beacon. And in its name it promises light and it promises safety.

And it gives us both a place to fit into and call home.

----------

"Hey..."

Spencer suddenly appears at my doorway, leaning into the frame with arms crossed, wearing _my_ clothes for once, and I have to cock my head to the side for a moment. I have to look at her looking so beyond beautiful in clothes I've meekly worn for years and all I can do is wonder how she instantly makes them look so beautiful. With lights on all around me, I have to wonder how she makes this room so much brighter by simply entering it.

"Hey..."

Thinly whispering into such a thick dark bright night, I hold my words close to my chest, like someone besides Spencer might take them. Like my parents are upstairs, and if they hear us they might come down and interrupt us and ruin this moment. But then I remember there's no one inside this house, no one but Spencer and me. And I don't know if that thought relieves me or terrifies me.

But I think it's maybe a little bit of both.

I fear it's a lot of both.

And we keep staying right where we are, staring at one another, letting the silence take over us. Feeling the weight of waiting and the thrill of bedroom tension. Feeling that river rushing between us decreasing while rushing faster.

And then Spencer tilts her head in that way she does, sending my stomach to do a little flip flop, while she speaks so softly. "You wanna play a game?"

There's a funny little smile on her face, mixing innocence with deviousness, barely seeing it with the lights so low and mellow like candlelight. Hearing such an unbelievable combination inside her voice, like this moment were a movie, where every frame is golden and every scene is so thought out that it burns everything into something close to perfection.

"What kind of game?"

Softly leaves my terrifyingly excited lips, moving my legs to sit Indian style, as Spencer finally enters my room, finally joining me in the wait and the anticipation instead of leaving me to drown inside it, while she runs the water down the hall.

"I don't know..." We're both speaking so softly, just the two of us barely saying words to each other, and it kind of drives me insane because I don't know what we're whispering for, I don't know what makes us so scared when it's just the two of us, "...truth or dare?" Her voice trails off softer than before, making me realize just how terrifying _just the two of us_ truly is, "Minus the dare apart?"

But then she speaks louder, stronger, smiling like the little girl that used to color in her books on this very rug, and I find myself happy. I find myself relieved. I find myself answering, not even knowing what I'm saying yes to, but knowing it really doesn't matter any more. Realizing I'd say yes to any question she'd ask me.

"Alright, then, I'll go first?" Her eyes crawl up to mine from the floor, in hesitation, in fear, like she's asking a safe question to ask harder, more dangerous, questions. This time I don't know if I can answer. So I just nod.

And she nods back, hands sliding beneath her legs crossed before her, holding onto them like a stuffed animal. Like the one she sleeps with every night but no one knows about, no one sees because she hides it. Cause she doesn't want any one to see how much she needs anything, let alone a stuffed bear.

"Ok, Ashley..." The side of her lip slips into her mouth, hugged between her teeth, making her look so young, so adorably pensive, that I get caught up in the image. Wishing I were a painter or a photographer or anyone who could perfectly freeze an image in time, someone who could freeze _her_ beauty in _my_ time for me and everyone to see when we no longer can, "...I want you to tell me about..." and then her voice finds a meaning, finds a place in this world, drawing my dazed-by-her-beauty eyes to look into her foggy eyes, teetering on the edge of something dangerous and something real. Something made up of promise, passion, and hunger.

And this time, as she asks me her questions, locked and loaded and looking for my answers, I'm not so sure I want to answer. I'm not so sure I want to give her my yeses anymore. But the longer I look at her, caught up in her beauty and the way her pretty lips form such pretty incoherent words meant for me, I'm not so sure I have a choice.

Because I don't think I have any more no's left to give her.

Because I don't think I ever had any to begin with.


	14. A Fairytale Life

AN :: I just wanted to thank all you guys for reading and reviewing and just leaving such kind kind words. I seriously appreciate it. I do hope you keep reading and enjoying and feel free to keep leaving your thoughts. Thanks again, guys.

---------------

The game had started out simple enough. Beginning inside a very safe and very warm place for us both to ease into. Questions about our childhoods, just grazing the surface, looking for those golden things we used to do when time didn't matter. All the Goonies adventures we'd find ourselves in when parents were the only ones who mattered. Somehow mattering more than ourselves.

All of Spencer's answers were really exciting for those questions.

More exciting than mine.

And that didn't make me very sad.

Because I longed for a game made up of only Spencer's truths, and not just for the obvious reasons, not for the dangerous bedroom tension and rushing rivers. No, I just wanted to hear her answers. I needed to hear her truths, because it's been so long since I've heard any of hers. It feels like forever since I've heard any truths at all.

But, now, we're starting to get into _other_ kinds of questions. While they're still about our childhood, still about those little girls playing in woods that don't belong to them, these feel different. Really different. Like _these_ answers are the _real_ truths. These are questions about the big girls we wished to grow into. About all those grown up things we wanted for our lives. The people we _knew_ we'd become one day. And whispering about the people we feared we would become.

All of Spencer's answers were _really_ quiet for those questions.

More quiet than mine.

And that made me _really_ sad.

"Ok..." Spencer looks as quiet as her breaking down answers, but she covers it up with a smile, masking it up with all she is now, the person she is _today_, and it makes me feel somewhat better because I _really_ like that girl, "...tell me about..." But now there's a lightness gracing her tired features (tired not from the night, but from the truth) as a sneaky smile slowly crosses her quiet lips, "...your first kiss."

She sits back, pride etched across her face, like we're getting into the good stuff now. Like this is what she's been waiting for all night. And I think we all know this is what I've been dreading all night. I think my face is the one looking tired now, because it's finally coming out how caught in the middle I am, wedged between the person I once was and the person I am today. Stuck inside a little girl who's trying so hard to be a big girl, but somehow can't swim past the shallow end.

Because I've never been kissed.

And I don't think this is a very surprising truth to you or to Spencer or to anyone who's ever seen me. But there's something about admitting this out loud, from my lips and from my lungs, but mostly from my heart, that makes it feel really sad. Somehow sadder than Spencer's whispered childhood.

When I finally look outside myself and my embarrassing truths, I find Spencer sitting there holding her legs like a bedtime bear, and I wish I could hold on with her. I wish for so much because this all feels so scary suddenly. This all feels like a big girl game and I'm not sure I know how to play. I'm not sure I even want to. But I know I have to, because when Spencer answered questions about being left home all alone at night, with just her shiny toys that only made her feel more alone, and how she'd cry herself to sleep, I'm pretty sure she didn't want to admit those things. I'm pretty sure she whispered so I wouldn't hear her.

Or maybe so she wouldn't hear herself.

And maybe that's why, when I answer with such a sad truth, I whisper it. I breathe "I've never been kissed before" like a scared little girl, looking _just_ below Spencer's eyes, as if it were a blanket to shield me from every scary monster that might be lurking inside my dark dark room. Crawling across this dusty old rug.  
"Shut up."

Is Spencer's heartbreaking response, like she needs more verification, like she needs to hear me actually say it, and I feel myself crumbling apart, because whispering it once was truly bad enough. Was truly awful, and I don't know how I feel about having to say it again. I don't know if I can. But what I do know is that when I finally chance looking back into her eyes, I see her kind of distorted and multiplied, like a crying kaleidoscope, and I think maybe, just maybe, she finally sees _my_ truths. All of them. Left with an answer in the form of a little girl, the one I've been and the one I still kind of am, and how that girl reads books for hours, imagining her life as a story. Imagining all those grown up things like a fairy tale.

"You really haven't, have you?" She doesn't ask this patronizingly, or pitifully. She only asks with shock, pure surprise, and maybe just a little bit of sadness. Maybe with a lot of sadness, but I just don't want to hear it all.

Maybe I just can't hear _that_ much sadness.

Especially when it's about me.

I don't think I can give her that answer, so I only nod. Shaking my head, feeling a distant tear or two slide right off my cheek. I bite my lip, as if I were trying to hold back words, but I think it's really just to hold back more tears and I wonder how that works. I wonder what's the point in holding back my lips when my eyes are crying. And then I only wonder what's the point in holding back at all, because your eyes will see and do whatever they want, whether you care or not.

"But..." Spencer still sounds disbelieving, sounds almost heartbroken, and I could never _not_ look at her when her voice sounds like that, so when I draw back to her, I find her looking just below _my_ eyes now, surveying the person I truly am before her, "...you're so pretty..." She whispers, but something tells me she wants us both to hear it this time, "...and so smart..." Her eyes finally crawl right over mine, so unlike the monsters crawling over this full carpet, these foreign objects shine so much warmth and so much sincerity into me, that I start to feel those tears leaking backward, I feel my teeth letting go of that captive lip, "...you're so perfect, Shady. You really are."

My cheeks blush, and my eyes flood, again, but this time it only feels warm. It only feels safe. It only feels something like a story, as lightning and thunder clap inside my mellow room. Sparking us with its electricity. With its fire and heat, painting us inside a very real and very dangerous kind of moment.

"Thank you."

Is the only thing I can whisper, saying the words softly, not because I want to hide my truths, but because I just can't find my real voice to speak them. I feel like that voice is so far gone, because the little girl it belongs to is slipping and sliding away. So far away, seeping inside the threads of this rug that I think I want to get rid of.

"You're welcome."

Her voices becomes so breathy and broken, beautifully broken, like it's meant to come out weathered and worn, because it makes this moment more real. More meaningful. And it is real, and it is meaningful, and maybe I don't want the moment to end. Maybe I want to give her more than just a tiny little secret that was so hard to whisper. Maybe I want to give her the nights I've spent alone in my bed, with all my dull and broken toys that always made me smile and feel safe.

"I used to dream about it though. My first kiss." Words leave my lips before I can stop them, but it's not like I'd really try to, it's not like I don't want to give her _these_ truths, and her eyes perk up for it. They steam inside mine, while the clash and clatter of thunder strikes through this room and through our hearts, making me wonder why we sat in so much silence for so long. Makes me believe God and Life and Mother Nature wanted to give us something to hold onto, something to paint inside these surreal moments. Making them into some thing like a fairy tale.

"Tell me about it..." Spencer whispers so quietly, so humbly, almost like she's desperate to hear about those hours I spent in the dark, in my bed, beneath such protective covers, "...please."

I swear I feel her more than I see her or hear her, and it's really so strange. The rain that's now pouring over my windows, the lightning that's lighting our faces better than any lamp that's been on a dresser for as long as I've lived. That's grounded me inside my life and childhood. And I'm starting to think maybe it's time I got a new lamp.

"Um, ok..." Fidgeting and sliding my hands down over my legs, like it might give me Spencer's courage, because suddenly this feels so much more than questions and answers, feels more like secrets and desires, intimacy and passion, like maybe _this_ is a first kiss, and somehow I keep talking through it all, speaking with shaking virgin lips, "...I always thought it'd be this, like, really special moment. Like, um, on a beach...or...I don't know...just..."

But it's hard, it's really hard secretly speaking about _my_ hours inside such safe darkness, sharing it with someone in such dangerous lightness.

"Hey, it's ok..." And maybe she knows, maybe she sees, cause her hand's now clasped around mine, stilling the tremors, stilling the fear and vulnerability, securing it inside herself, like we were in this together, "...you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

And it makes me feel safe.

"But I want to." It makes me feel _really_ safe, "...I'm just scared." Breaks from my never more honest lips, and it only takes her a second before she whispers more strongly than before, "You don't have to be scared with me, Shady."

And then she smiles. So softly big, so beautifully mesmerizing, causing me to take a deep breath and a slow picture, capturing her in my mind's eye. So I'll never forget this moment, this one brief moment in time where everything felt so much like change. Felt so much like life beginning, and somehow ending at the same time.

With her hand in mine, brushing and shushing and stroking, I finally let go of such a little girl.

"When I was little..." Shaking my head, rerouting for all my honesty, for every ounce of it, "...and still sometimes today...I'd lie in bed at night, before falling asleep, just dreaming my own dreams, you know?" I don't wait for her to answer, though, I don't wait for anything or anyone to take _this_ moment away from _me_, "...I'd think about a lot of stuff, but there were always dreams about my first kiss. Just what something like that would truly feel like. Maybe on a beach somewhere, beneath a big blanket of stars, on the softest sand I'd ever felt. Feeling it cool between my toes while I felt someone so warm before me, right next to me..." I don't know if she's looking at me because I'm too busy looking down and inside my own dreams, but I think I hear her breathing, and I think it's what keeps me going, "...and sometimes I picture my first kiss like a movie. Like I'm with a best friend, I mean, if I actually have a best friend by then..." My voice cracks, knowing just how hard it is to admit that, "...but maybe I'm in love with this best friend and maybe I always believed they never knew it. Maybe I felt like they'd never feel that way for me. And I'd forever love this person because they were everything to me, they were everything I'd ever wanted and in some way, even if they never loved me back, it'd still be enough, because I'd at least know what love was. Because I'd felt it and that's all that really ever matters."

It's really quiet in my room, even with the rain and the clouds and the thunder. It's so quiet that I wonder if Spencer can still hear me, because sometimes silence can be deafening, and I wonder if Spencer's able to listen through it. I really hope she is. I really hope she's hearing all the words I can barely ever admit to myself, because I think they're important.

I think this is what makes life worth living. Moments like these.

"But maybe it'd eventually become too much, holding all that love inside myself. Maybe that's a burden that keeps a person up at night, tossing and turning, sometimes even crying, because I'd imagine it'd be really hard having to see a person like that and having to be around them everyday, having them so close but so far away at the same time..." I don't look up to her, I just _can't_, because maybe I'm too afraid at this point, maybe words are all I have to keep me safe, to keep me inside this moment without ever forgetting it, so I keep talking, but my voice feels so heavy and so sad and so very scared, "..So I think I'd tell that person, I'd admit it in the rain or in a parking lot or their back yard, anywhere that's usually so ordinary but suddenly feels really important. I'd do it one day after school or maybe late at night, it wouldn't really matter because time suddenly wouldn't matter, and that in itself would make it so special. And I'd shout it because I think that's the kind of thing a person shouts. When they love someone and can't hide it any longer. When they feel something so strongly but have kept it inside for so long. I think the best way to get rid of something like that is to just let it all go. Because if anything, maybe it'll help them forget. Maybe they'd feel released or something. Like they were finally free."

I take another deep breath, eyes hopping back and forth, never settling for one spot. And never ever daring to look anywhere near her, because I think that's more frightening than the painfully silent cracks of lightning splattering across my childhood walls.

"...So I'd be standing there, wet and cold and never more alive, and they'd just stare at me like they never knew and maybe I'd feel out of breath and numb. Like my heart had stopped beating, completely, because I think that's probably what a breaking heart feels like, I think maybe that expression is really true, and sometimes when I imagine this moment, when I see a person I love standing before me looking confused and surprised, but mostly looking like they're not in love too, I think...I think I really feel my heart breaking, I think I really actually feel it, because... how could they not feel it too?"

There are tears in my eyes, I know these tears, I remember them, from so many dark nights that suddenly felt so much darker and so much more lonely. I feel these tears a lot when I think of a first kiss like this. And I wonder if Spencer feels tears in her eyes too. I wonder if Spencer remembers a first kiss like this, and how her heart broke when it ended too soon. When everything ended too soon.

"The silence of surprise would last so long, too long, and I'd have to turn away, I'd have to walk away, because I still wouldn't be able to feel my heart and I still wouldn't be able to breathe and the longer I looked at love unreturned I think the worse it'd get. So I wouldn't even say anything. I'd just turn around, I'd just look straight ahead hoping to feel that freedom I thought I might feel. The release I was praying for. But..." My voice feels better, stronger, cause this is the good part, this is the part that sometimes never comes because I had already cruelly fallen asleep, "...but then I'd feel someone turning me back. I'd feel - I'd feel _that_ person holding me, and pulling me, and before I even knew it they'd be kissing me. Like really really kissing me, soft but hard at the same time, because I think that's what a kiss might feel like when you love someone so much and you're finally saying it. You're finally realizing it. And the rain would just keep falling, maybe falling even harder, and the clouds would grow heavier and grayer, but it wouldn't be darker, it'd only feel lighter because I'd be wrapped up in their arms and they'd be wrapped up in mine. We'd finally be wrapped up in each other, and every single detail of the moment would be the glue that held us together. The blanket that secured us inside eternity. Giving us that piece of the world and that place in time, giving it to only us, just us. And I think we'd always remember how we shivered when our lips first met, but we'd never felt more warm."

I'm out of breath. I think I might even be panting against a hand held over my mouth with fingers pressed to my lips, never even remembering bringing them there in the first place. The silence is so long, too long, and I wonder if it's silence of surprise, like in my dreams, like in my imagined first kiss. Because right now, it doesn't feel like dreams or imaginations, it feels like confessions. It feels like me sprawled, nude and naked, shaking right before her. Instead of next to her, or inside her. And I think I really, _really_, wish to be inside _her_.

"Wow." The word falls from her lips in one big breath or a hard pant or some other kind of heavenly exhalation, and suddenly it feels safe enough to look at her, only her, and when I do, she has tears in her eyes, but they don't look sad or broken, they just look warm and soft, "...that was really beautiful."

She smiles then, but it looks like it's hard for her to really pull it off, like there's just too much inside her, too much beauty and awe to hold up her sturdy lips, but she does the best she can. And it's more than enough for me. It's more than enough to keep me silent, because I'm not sure there's anything a person should say to something like that. I don't think it's really appropriate to take credit or pride for your own dreams. Because maybe dreams are a cop out so that you never have to put yourself out there. So that you never have to live outside books and fairy tales, and you can keep your beating heart safe from ever breaking.

I feel Spencer's hand still holding onto mine, somehow harder and softer and safer and scarier than before, and it makes me realize that's exactly what dreams are. I realize how much I shouldn't have shared such a secret and safe place, because now it's out in the open and there's nowhere to hide. There's no place to call mine, only mine, because now Spencer's there with me, and it feels like she's only pulling me closer. Tugging on my hand, pulling on it like a line and I'm something to catch, and I'm not sure I'm ready to be caught.

Suddenly we're so much closer than we were, and her other hand is resting on my leg, wrapped around it like a stuffed animal, but I don't think it's for her to rely on, I think it's for me to rely on, and I'm not sure I want to rely on anything.

"Ash..." She whispers with watery eyes and licked lips, parted and waiting, leaning closer to me, and I feel my chest constricting, I feel my breath stopping, and my heart without beats and I'm confused because I always thought _this_ was what a breaking heart was supposed to feel like, not a heart finally piecing together, "...Ash?"

She's now asking a question that wants permission, not my truths, but really, it _is_ asking for my truths, probably more so than before, and I'm not sure I'm ready to grant that kind of allowance, I'm not sure I'm ready to share those truths.

"My turn?"

So I break the moment, sadly realizing I'll never forget this moment, because I'll always remember how I broke it, cutting through it harder and stronger than any thunderstorm outside any of my life's windows. And Spencer doesn't look sad or disappointed or mad at me. She just looks like she expected it, and now I think it's _me_ who looks sad and disappointed and mad, but it's only at myself.

Which makes it all the more sad.

"Sure. Ask away..." She smiles, like first kisses moments never happened, "...ask me anything."

And it makes me think for a second, for a long while, thinking about that word "anything", and how easily she just granted it to me. Thinking about how dangerous a word like "anything" can truly be. So I think about 'anything', long and hard and not because I want to be dangerous. But because in a world of wanting to know everything, anything can be really hard. Anything can take time. And it's strange, cause I already know what I want to know anything about. I've been curious since the moment it happened, since the hours before where Spencer jumped so far away from me, when Glen interrupted girls on top of girls on top of beds. When the jumping was so far and so different from her first reaction to Glen barging inside our first moment, weeks ago.

I've been wondering about that a lot. Probably just like she's been wondering about my first kiss, just like she's been waiting for the right moment to ask about it.

"Tell me about the best thing you own."

But I'm not as brave as her. Or maybe I'm just not ready as her to stop waiting, and have _that_ moment already be here. So I settle for a safe bet, where there's nothing to lose.

And there's really nothing to gain either.

"Hmm, best thing I own..." Pondering and letting her words fade away, she still doesn't look upset, her eyes only look hopeful, or maybe a little bit anxious, like she's debating what to share, what to give me for an answer, "...I think it'd have to be this book that I keep by my bed at night and how it never makes me feel alone." I gulp suddenly, because maybe it wasn't such a safe bet, maybe I'm gaining everything from a throwaway question, "...you see this girl gave me this book about a week ago, and I know it meant a lot to her because the pages are worn, like they've lived a life. Like maybe this book had taken a little piece of her, and then she gave me that piece and part of herself. She bravely gave it to me, so I keep it close to me, all the time. And I read little parts of it every day, never reading all of it, because I want it to last. I don't want it to ever end. Although it's really hard sometimes, not reading it all at once, I really want to because then maybe I'll know more about her, maybe it'll show me so much more than just a piece of her. Because she kind of keeps to herself, she kind of hides in the shade and the shadows, even though she could never fully hide. There's just too much beauty in her heart and in her dreams and in her eyes and I don't think she realizes just how much of that radiates from her. I don't think she understands just how many people _really_ do see her."

There's a heavy moment of silence between us, filled with flashes of looks and lips and teeth and smiles and so many other things, like a life that flashes before a person's eyes before they die. And it makes me think a life flashes before a person's eyes before they're about to live as well.

"_To The Lighthouse_ is the best thing I own, Ashley, because I think in a big small way it's a piece of your heart, it's a piece of _you_ that maybe nobody's ever seen, and I'll always treasure that..." There might be tears in her eyes again, there might be so much that I've never felt or seen inside her eyes reaching down to her heart, as I feel her hand in mine again, reaching down for _my_ heart, "...and I'll always keep it safe, ok? I'll always keep it close to me so maybe you'll feel more safe..." A gentle squeeze, "...maybe you won't feel so scared."

Now I know there are tears in my eyes, falling and drawing over my rosy cheeks, so slow and so soft, and I don't know if they're happy or sad, but maybe they're relieved. Maybe this is the freedom and release my dreams have told me about.

Silence takes over us, the silence of surprise, and it's lasting so long, too long, because I don't think that's what this silence is. I think this is the silence of exposure, uncovering all of these things that were always there to begin with, but we never let ourselves fully see them. And now she's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and we're both kind of speechless, and we're both kinda trying to smile but we can't because there's too much inside our hearts and our lips and we're not sure which words to use. We're not sure if there are even words left to use at this point.

All of a sudden she wipes at her eyes, furtively and quickly, looking so familiar. Looking like a vision of myself, standing in the rain, soaking and cold, waiting for someone to say something. Waiting for _that_ person to say it back.

"I'm sorry, I'm not -" She hiccups suddenly, wiping and wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, and it breaks my heart so much that I'm still so speechless in a moment where speaking is so beyond necessary "...I'm not as good with words. Not like you."

And now she's standing, with a sad sad back facing me, and I'm so outside myself that I don't even realize it when I've jumped up for her. When I've clasped onto her arm, and I've pulled her around to face me. Even when we stand inches apart, teary eyes to teary eyes, feeling such a heavy moment between us that has to be outside of the two weeks we've known each other. It has to live inside a place like forever and maybe we really have known each other that long, we just haven't had the chance to meet until now.

"I-"

The word trickles from my mouth, knowing I need to say something, anything, but I'm just not sure what those words should be. Because in my dreams I'm the one who's already said them, I'm the one who's already shouted them, and it seemed so much easier then. Dreams are so much safer when there's so much to say.

And as I finally look into her eyes, seeing them so much like a dream, I finally find something to say.

"Ask me."

And she's still not getting it. So I keep talking, like I were in a dream or something. Or maybe I'm just ready. Maybe I'm just as ready and brave as her, and the moment really is here and it's really ok. It's everything it's supposed to be.

"Ask me when I felt it, Spencer..." Her eyes finally register it, and they soften and widen all at the same time, like she were realizing that maybe, just maybe, the moment really is here, and before she can pointlessly ask me my question again, I give her my answer, my _real_ truths, "...because I don't know if I can answer that question. I don't know if there was ever a time where I _didn't_ feel it with you. I think I felt it instantly, the first time I saw you on that first day of school when you dropped your sketch pad, and you picked it up like you didn't care that you had dropped it in front of all these people. Right in the middle of everyone walking to class. You looked so at ease, so uncaring, like it didn't matter that you made a mistake, you just wanted to pick up that sketch pad because it meant something to you. And I remember thinking how amazing that was, how a girl could be so unaffected by what other people thought about her, especially when she'd never met them before..."

We're both smiling and we're both crying and that should feel strange, but it only feels right. And I think it's because all I feel is freedom. All I feel is release, and I realize just how true those dreams were.

"You were all by yourself, Spencer, but you never looked alone. You were all you had, but it always looked like it was enough. And somehow I wanted to be apart of that, because sometimes being on your own really isn't enough and I'm starting to realize that. I'm starting to understand it the more I'm with you. The more I realize I want to be apart of you."

A clap of thunder shakes us, but comes nowhere close to breaking us, as I take a step closer to her. Feeling our breaths rattle from our shaken bodies and lungs, breaking all across us, feeling like the rain from outside has reached us inside. Feeling wet and warm and never more alive, as I reach my hand up to her cheek. Wisping my thumb along her skin, as I step even closer, feeling our stomachs bump and brush together softly, sending my legs to feel numb and wobbly.

"So I'm telling you now, Spencer, that I _do_ feel it, I feel it so much..." I can feel her breaths on my hand on her cheek, like I were actually inside her, and I smile because that's where I've always wanted to be, "...and I've always felt it..." Moving my other hand to cup her other cheek, only feeling closer to her, overwhelmingly close, "...and I'm sure."

A streak of lightning strikes us into reality, opening her eyes so wide, in realization, in clarity. Remembering the first night in her bed, without glasses and talking about doing things we want instead of what others want.

"You - you're sure?"

Stutters from her lips, looking more like me than herself, looking cold and warm in the rain, and I only nod my head, as I feel bravery inside myself that really belongs to her.

And it's not too silent for too long, it's just right, as I slowly inch toward her, feeling my life closing in like a story, not a fairytale, but a really good book that's really life, and I've never felt more happy. I've never felt more alive, I've never been more aware, with the rain falling outside and the thunder cementing us in time.

I'm almost there, so close I can taste her breath and the toothpaste she used that's actually mine, wondering if she tastes the same thing on my breath.  
Almost there until - "Wait." Puffs from her lips against mine, feeling her breath louder than any words anyone's ever shouted. "Wait." She says it again, and this time it wakes me up, sending me far from her, so afraid and so scared, fearing the rejection I've been fearing in my dreams for years now.

"No, no...It's not -" She shakes her head, smiling like she can't believe herself, "...I really want to, but, I just -" I'm so lost and confused and maybe a little bit sad, but not too sad, cause she's still smiling, through her tears and her tremors, she's still biting her lip between her teeth, looking positively adorable and beautiful and timeless.

But then I'm no longer anything, I'm only following her as she pulls us down halls and stairs and floors that have pulled me for so long, bringing me to all the real places, instead of all the places inside my dreams. Never bringing me anywhere close to where I've always wanted to be.

Never until now.

Because now we're sprinting out my back door, slipping and sliding over such wet blades of grass. Smelling the scents of summer and fall blending together, sealing us inside a magical piece of this life, as we keep sprinting across my small back yard that suddenly feels infinite. Sprinting and panting and feeling so breathless as she guides us to a spot right in the middle. To a spot that the moon would shine on if it weren't raining, if it weren't cloudy, if it weren't a perfect moment inside a fairytale.

There's no more lightning or thunder, because maybe Life and God and Mother Nature knew this was our moment and knew this was something that should only belong to us.

She doesn't say anything as she holds on to both of my hands. She only giggles in a very quiet way. She only smiles in a very real way. And it makes me watch her for a second, for what feels like a lifetime, seeing the rain fall in slow motion, draping over her long eye lashes, painting her eyes a lighter shade of blue. A brighter shade of heaven.

The silence lasts so long, for so very long, hearing our hearts thumping together. Holding onto every single detail of this moment, storing as many as I possibly can, so when I look back, I'll always remember them. I'll always remember the way the rain smelled. The way the trees blew their leaves together. The way my stomach tossed and turned, and maybe even cried a little. The way her fingers were so slippery and cold in mine. The way my glasses fogged up, and how she pulled them off so I could see everything clearer. The way I actually _could_ see everything clearer.

And when she kissed me, soft but hard at the same time, I'll always remember how I shivered.

And how I'd never felt so warm.


	15. Kissing In Real Life

Lying flat on my back over my little girl bed, I stare at a ceiling I've been staring at for years now that no longer looks the same. Living inside a room I've always known, that suddenly feels like a stranger. Nothing looks the same inside this room that used to say so much about me, about my life and my childhood, and how those two things were actually one in the same. How that childhood never actually left that life I was living. And I think for once that childhood is living where it should have always been. I think it's finally back inside my youth, instead of living inside these painted walls, and this threaded carpet.

My hands idly wisp across my t-shirt covered torso, feeling myself in new pajamas. Still somewhat fazed by how I actually dressed myself in them. Somehow fazed by how I can wear clothes dryer and warmer than a beach towel, yet still feel wet inside. So wet. From such fairy tale rain, that draped and covered Spencer and me. Melding us, kissing and breathing and melting, together.

I smile a strange little smile. Excited and scared all at once.

I can't believe I kissed someone. Me, Ashley Davies, kissed someone, kissed Spencer Carlin. And I don't care that it was outside in the rain. I don't care that she's a girl. I don't care that she's not big and hard and strong like a boy, because Spencer is big and soft and strong like a girl. And sometimes - most times - those girls are stronger than anyone.

It could have been minutes. Maybe even seconds. But when Spencer's lips hugged mine, wet and true, it felt like they hugged for hours. It felt like an eternity was spent slipping inside her mouth. And the rain did fall harder, but somehow it only felt softer. And the sky did grow darker, but together as one, we were only lighter.

And when she pulled away, breathless just like me, she looked like she always had. Just the same heartbreakingly beautiful Spencer. But it wasn't the same. No, not even close. Because, somehow, a just-kissed-Spencer was even more beautiful than before. Because somehow, with her hands cupping my face like fragility, she felt like strength. She felt like security. And it made me feel different.

With lips hovering together, suddenly I felt like strength and security.

"Wow."

Breathed from her lips, like so many other times before, but this time it felt like it actually meant something. Like this time was something she'd never experienced before. And it made me shiver from head to toe, even though I wasn't cold. Even though I wasn't even close. Even though I was burning up from inside out. And my body fell into hers, of its own accord. My lips pressed to the side of her mouth. Half on her cheek, half on her lips, showing my deep inexperience for all things intimate. But I don't think my lack of experience had anything to do with it. Not really. I think I just didn't want to leave her yet. I don't think I could have even if I'd wanted to.

Finally, through the pelts of rain, I whispered against her. "Thank you." So sweet. So soft. So disbelieving.

With our damp foreheads pressed together, she didn't say anything back. She just looked down on me with eyes that looked so different when wet. That looked so different through my blurry vision that was actually never clearer. A slow goofy smile spread across her face, like she were actually just seeing me too. Like this were something just dawning on her, and maybe she just needed to make sure of it. Maybe she just needed to really feel me to understand me, to understand this was really happening, because suddenly she brought a bashful finger to my forehead. And slowly she painted that finger, like one of her brushes, down my face. Over my temple, across my cheek, finally lowering it to my mouth. With slow and slippery strokes she traced my lips, lips that never felt so full, over and over again. Almost like she was kissing me again, but this was different. This was somehow more. This was innocent and dangerous at the same time, wrapping so many emotions into a confusing mix. Causing my breaths to stutter from my lungs, as she gently pulled away and smiled. Leaving me with so many questions and feelings and her taste still on my tongue.

She stared down on me for excruciating minutes that were probably really seconds, until she finally quietly whispered right against me. "Thank you." So soft. So sweet. So believing.

And then she laced her fingers with mine, like she were lacing me with all that she is as I felt her so cold and numb. Making me wonder if it was from the weather and the rain. Smiling, I wondered if maybe, just the tiniest maybe, her fingers felt different because of me and mine. And I felt a heart fuller than ever before, as she gently spoke inside my ear, "Let's go inside."

So I followed her. I followed her fully and bravely, letting her lead me down halls that had always walked me but suddenly seemed like they had always walked her. Gently directing me like I had no clue which way to go, and maybe I didn't. Because she was the one that guided us inside my bedroom, like it were hers, and she's the one that handed me new pajama's, like they'd always belonged to her.

And she was the one to smile, saying "I'm going to go change in the bathroom...but I'll be right back", as if she were helping me feel safe inside my own room.

But I think I needed that, because my legs were trembling and my hands were shaking, and my heart was thumping so hard that I almost couldn't hear myself breathe. I couldn't hear myself whisper, "Ok" So unbelievably soft, so incredibly scared.

So now I'm here, sprawled, dry and open, on such a little bed that used to make me feel safe. Suddenly making me feel terrified. Because I was just kissed, by a girl changing in my bathroom, while my parents are away. So far away. Leaving me alone, with that kissing girl and a big open bed, and there's nothing to keep me safe. Nothing to hold me down. Nothing to stop this room from forever changing.

"Hey there."

A whispered voice fills the silent room, and suddenly I feel wrapped and held and warm. Protectively covered by a girl who looks at me like maybe she could love me, who kisses me like maybe she's never kissed anyone.

I don't say anything as I turn to look at her standing in my doorway. Seeing her like a warped and distorted version of deja vu, before she tentatively crawls across my room. Marking her steps in trepidation, making it seem like she's just as nervous as me. Like maybe this room, and this bed, and a house to ourselves is as scary an equation to her as it is to me.

"Is it ok if I...?"

She trails off into the thick air, like maybe her voice was caught up inside it, as she points down onto my bed. Pointing like she were asking with a finger, but it doesn't seem like she's really asking or waiting for me to give her anything. Because I think she already knows I'll always say yes, even when I'm scared. Even when I think things would be much better if I shouted no instead.

But I could never say no, let alone shout it, so I whisper "sure" so very softly, because I don't think I could shout that either.

And she smiles because of it, quirking her lips to the sky, looking so beyond beautiful that I still can't believe it's my bed she's moving toward. That it's me she's crawling for, kind of like an animal on all fours, and that might scare me if it weren't for her ocean eyes holding onto mine. Letting me know it's ok. Making me believe everything might always be ok.

It seems to take such a long time for her to settle into the bed she loves. The bed she thought was so "divine" with all my tears and smiles and, after tonight, with so much more. With lips to lips and bodies to bodies. I think she might love this bed even more after tonight. I think I might too. I think after I tear myself away from this little girl room, throwing away its forever lamp and dusty rug, I might keep this bed. I might keep it forever.

Seemingly antsy and anxious, her body finally finds a place that suits her, a place that's obviously next to mine, a place that I think will always have her name on it. The air is so quiet, the rain falling over the windows sounding nothing like a fairy tale, and everything like reality. Like my life that is changing, and maybe that's what a life changing sounds and looks like. Maybe it's the way the rain sheeted a window, and how the lights flickered every now and then, trickling light over her smiling face. Brighting her eyes trained straight through mine, shining so much "ok" inside mine, that I could never not believe them. Believing them with every ounce of a changed heart still beating inside me. Somehow beating all the same.

An after thought of lightning streaks through the room, like it were heat lightning, like it knows there's growing heat scorching us between our wet bodies. And I feel my stomach settling low in my body, losing itself within my lost self, as she timidly reaches her hand out for me again. As she slowly makes her way to my face, and for once I'm not backing away. For once I'm leaning into her touch, letting her stroke her paint brush fingers down the side of my face, through my hair, behind my ear, across my neck, beneath my jaw, touching me in so many places that it's becoming unbearable. It's becoming so overwhelmingly good and bad and nothing like I've ever felt that I can't keep my eyes open. I can only moan, a guttural voice leaving my dry lips that I've never heard before.

"Are you ok?"

And maybe she's never heard something like it either, maybe she's never felt anything like the girl beneath her finger tips, cause her voice softly finds me in the night time air, whispering with so much trepidation. With so much unclarity that I have to open my eyes again, unable to stop them from opening wide and bright, finding her closer than she was before. Looking worried and happy all at once. Eyes with concern, and lips with anticipation.

So I nod, loving the way her hand fits to my cheek, feeling like my face is now complete for having been cupped by her hands. For some reason, she nods too, back at me, like I were asking something. And maybe I am, maybe I've always been asking for something, and I'm just realizing it, because now I'm the one reaching for her face. I'm the one making the leap and jumping the bridge, and completing her face with my hands cupping her cheeks. I do just as she's done. I mirror her actions, copying her like an instruction manual, because maybe I need one. Maybe I have no clue what I'm supposed to do.

Or maybe I just like what she's done to me.

"I really want to kiss you again."

Breathes from my lungs, feeling breaths that I don't recognize, that surely can't belong to me, because did I really just say that? Did I just take the initiative? But I must have because her eyes widen with the shock my lips feel for the words I've spoken. Shocked for the words I didn't even realize I could say. Shocked for how much I really do feel those words. For how much I yearn to kiss her again.

"Me too."

And her breath against me tells me she does too. Her breath tasting so much like toothpaste and beauty, feeling my lips tingle as my tongue swipes across them in preparation.

We look at each other for heartbreaking seconds, because this should be easy, because we've already kissed, because we make each other safe. But it still doesn't feel that safe or that dangerous. It feels like so much more. Because now we don't have the rain or the trees or magical backyards to take away reality. We only have each other, and the little space between us on a bed of possibility. Possibility that I'm really not ready for.

And maybe she's not either.

Because she slowly inches closer, like I might disappear, stroking her fingers down behind my ear, making me shiver from the inside out, feeling the chill down my spine in such an oddly warm way.

"Come here."

She whispers before her lips find mine again. Before she claims them softly and gently, feeling them for a second time, feeling them so much more. There's no question within myself whether this is really happening or not. Because all I hear is our breaths puffing from our noses, breathing heavier and heavier, as she kisses me longer and longer. Fingers tracing and drawing and moving, scorching my cool skin on fire, forcing my eyes to close. Shutting them tight, wanting to feel her completely, without seeing her, because maybe that's too scary.

Maybe that's just a little too real.

Suddenly I feel her lifting herself off the bed slightly, glazing across my lips from a different angle, from a deeper perspective, and it makes me wonder if that's the only reason for her shifting. I wonder if it's so she can kiss me easier or so she can feel me easier, from a better perspective, with her body on top of mine. I'm really not sure what her motives are, but I don't care anymore. I let her do what she wants. I let her do so much, because just like that, with one stroke of her tongue against my top lip, I'm lost. So lost inside her mouth, and I'm hungry. I'm antsy and needy and clinging to her body still residing beside mine, instead of on top of it, where I wish she'd go. Silently begging her to take the leap cause I need to feel her. I need so much more, chasing both her lips between mine, drawing my tongue inside her mouth, doing what they do in the movies. Doing what I've read on so many dark pages. Doing what I think I should, what I think she wants, what my imagination has told me. Thinking kisses should be hungry and hopeless, always needing more and searching for it with all I have. Because my heart needs it, because my lips need it. Because every ounce of my body needs so much more than I even understand.

But I don't feel what those movies or my imagination has promised. This doesn't feel like the kisses from my dreams. This feels sloppy and harsh. And I'm starting to wonder if kissing is all it's cracked up to be.

Slowly she pulls away, detaching herself from my tangled lips, while keeping her face close. Painfully close, because now I feel like she doesn't want this, like maybe I'm not all I'm cracked up to be. And I feel myself frown, even though she's smiling so sincerely at me. Even though she's still stroking through my hair like a girl who might love me.

"Shhh..." She whispers like someone trying to coax a person into sleep, or to stop them from crying, and I would feel incredibly foolish if it weren't for the way she threads through my hair while threading through my fears with such soft eyes. "...It's ok." She whispers again, and it confuses me. I'm not really sure what she means, because I thought we were kissing, and I thought that meant that things were already "ok". I thought I was doing things right because that's how it always looks on TV.

"I want to take our time. I want you..." She pecks my lips, "...slow...", Kissing softly, shortly, and wetly, whispering inside my mouth, "...and gentle." And then she gives me another teasing kiss to the corner of my mouth, so achingly soft, so devastatingly caring. "Because I never want to waste or rush a second with you, Shady." And I think I get it. I think I love it. I think I'm learning how to kiss, because just like before, I take her lead. I press my lips to hers just as delicately, noticing she never throws her tongue inside my mouth. Noticing nothing is pushed or forced with her, everything is just right. Everything is loving and warm, and I realize kissing is everything it's cracked up to be and nothing like it is on TV. I realize kissing is so much better in real life.

Or maybe it's just better with her.

Slowly she slides her body over mine, no longer asking permission or useless questions, already knowing my answers from the maturing mouth melting with hers. With my lips that are reading hers like they are the instruction manual.

Suddenly a gasp leaves my lips, a moan coated inside a whimper, because her body just pushed into mine, right between my legs, sending a shiver and a shock through me. Never realizing how good that could feel. Never realizing that could send my body to act on its own, feeling my hips slowly arching up into her. Feeling so vulnerable and open and aching, wishing I could stop reacting to her so much. Wishing I could hide the need between my legs and the want inside my heart, but I can't. I can't stop any of this, it feels too good. She feels too good. The way she keeps kissing me over and over again, never staying in one place, making my hips rock even further into her. Feeling a dampness inside me, beneath these dry pajamas, having nothing to do with the rain. Having nothing to do with anything but her teasing lips caressing mine. Her tongue slowly stroking mine, teaching me what a tongue is really for.

"Spencer."

Pleadingly aches and twists from my mouth, feeling so crazy inside, like I might just die, and I don't understand it. Because I've never felt more alive. Because I've never felt more feeling or aware. I've never felt like this before, and I don't know how to stop it, because I don't think I want to stop it. What a strange feeling, going crazy and not sure you ever want to go sane again. Feeling like you're going to burst and not sure you want to stop the explosion.

"It's ok." She whispers again, but she doesn't stop, she just keeps kissing, dragging her lips down my neck, "...it's ok, Ash..." She rasps against my throat, and I trust her, because I think she understands. I think she's been here before and she'd never push me. But I feel my body tensing up, I feel my eyes shutting tighter, caught between want and fear and not knowing how to choose between one and the other. Not understanding how to stop my body from needing hers, needing in such a way that it somehow feels more important than my own.

Her lips slow down, kissing with drawn out strokes, as she walks her way over to my ear, merely breathing there for a moment, for a long safe moment, before she whispers strongly, "I'd never push you, Shady."

And then she pushes herself up from my body, just the tiniest bit, looking down on me like a little girl matching the one below her. Leaving me to wonder how she always manages to do that. How she chooses between want and fear so easily. But then I no longer care or wonder, because her fingers are tricking over my skin as she pulls a piece of hair behind my ear, feeling my cheeks flushed on fire, eyes hazy and hooded as she softly pecks my swollen lips with unbelievable care, whispering "Ok?"

Her eyes flick over my face like she were training it to her memory, like she'll never see it again, and it leaves me to just stare at her face the same way. Feeling like this moment could end at any moment, even when I know it won't.

"Ok?"

She whispers again, this time closer to my mouth, this time hearing it through my lips instead of my ears, and it wakes me up. Sends me to nod my head, hold her face, whispering "I know" right back inside her.

And that's all she needs. That's all I need. Because that's the last thing we say, those are the last words we whisper, using our wet and swollen lips to kiss and nip and taste instead. Using our threaded fingers and tangled legs, to hug and hold for the rest of the night.

Forever changing this room and this girl sleeping inside it, I'm no longer afraid.

Reaching for a beautiful girl, holding her between my big girl hands, I'm loving every minute.


	16. Waking Up

_There's a single ray of light, bright and true, gently reaching my sweetly slumbering form and it slides my smiling face further into the bed. Further into the depths of a warm comforter, smelling like the best night of my life. Smelling like a girl who's grown up and has changed and might never be the same again. Smiling wider than ever, somehow no longer afraid, I roll deeper. Pushing out the real sun light, savoring the night before. Savoring the smell of fresh rain, green grass, and shaking hands._

I let my reborn and worn out and never-feeling-better tongue lick across my dry and sore lips, finding a taste on my tongue that sends shivers down my spine. A taste of something foreign, yet familiar. A delicious drink of old mixed with new, and I'd probably wonder how that's possible, how two entirely different feelings can be mixed into one sensation. But I'm not. I'm not wondering or over analyzing, because that concoction has Spencer's name on it.

And that name lays beside mine.

Sliding a groggy hand out from under me, I search for that name. I reach for those E's and that S and all those letters that might never be the same again, because I stole them with my lips and my tongue and my teeth. Because I've changed her too, and maybe, just maybe, she's given me that little piece of her that's no longer the same.

Because maybe, just maybe, she's given me **all** of her.

But my quickly awakening hands keep spreading and splaying across these crisp old sheets, and they're finding nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing but the way things were, instead of the way things should be.

And maybe I don't have all the things I thought I did.

"Spencer?"

Squeaks from my still sleeping lips, hardly able to hear all those letters I thought belonged to me over my own rapidly beating heart, as I finally lift my head from the depths of a cocktail bed.

"I'm right here."

But her voice sates it all, quickly quieting that dull ache of insecurity that's somehow still buried deep in my chest. Because she's right **there**, right in front of me, sitting on that old rug where a silly game of truth changed my life. And I can't help but smile softly toward her, remembering that game of scary truths. Briefly imagining many more games of many more truths and how those games might turn me into something new. Might turn me into something beautiful.

"Hi." Somehow breathes from me, even though I feel breathless, as my mouth opens toward the ceiling; displaying my sleep filled teeth beneath such over kissed lips.

"I just couldn't help myself." A smile slides across her peacefully gorgeous face, one lip finding its way between her teeth, as two paper cups - looking just like the first day I realized I could love her - slowly find their way toward the sky, "...I thought we could use these. You know, give us some energy and help us wake up."

Suddenly this bed feels far warmer, her suggestive words resurrecting the heat that escalated between the sheets from earlier, from our drinking bodies between them. And it makes my voice tremble like a flower in the wind. "Oh, um, I...well I, um, - " My talking dribbles away and drowns out, watching the way Spencer crawls across the floor toward me, looking so safe, even though a sneaky smirk is forming across her red lips, "...uh, I don't like coffee."

Pathetically blurts from my chest as she settles before me at the end of the bed, leaving me to ridiculously wonder for the briefest moment how we even ended up at the foot instead of the head. But it's only a millisecond of thought, because Spencer's smiling down on me. So sweetly. Her crystal eyes are drawing over my lips. So adoringly. And when she whispers "I know. That's why I got you tea." so close and so very warm, I forget everything and anything that exists outside the two of us.

There's a forever pause, before she sighs with a gentle grin, "You still think I don't see you, Shady..." A tentative hand moves toward my face, grazes across my hairline, "...but I do. I've always seen you." Another beautiful moment filled with deep breaths from both of us, "...and I've seen how you never drink the coffees I give you. Finally realized it was time to switch up my game and give you what you might want instead."

The air lifts around us with our joint laughter. However it's our eyes, locked and melded together, that keeps the moment heavy. That keeps making us into something new. Something beautiful.

"Thank you." Leaves my heart, as I lift myself ever so slightly to meet her gaze.

"Thank **you**." Somehow, she smiles with her eyes, a quality she seems to effortlessly posses, before her hand slides through my hair. "God, you are so beautiful."

It's so quiet and soft, that I almost don't believe I've heard it. I almost ask her to repeat it, and not because I don't believe I heard it (because I know I heard it) but I need to hear it again.

And again.

But she beats me to it.

"So, are you ok? With everything that happened between us last night?"

I take a moment to look into her concerned eyes, her concerned smile, her priceless face and all these things that might belong to me. These things that might have been meant for me and mine.

"**You** are so beautiful." Whispered, raspy yet soft, and I almost can't believe I've said it, because I'm supposed to be stuttering and blushing and letting her say words like 'beautiful'. But I did say it because I needed to, because she needed to hear it, because I woke up this morning and I'm no longer the same. Because I woke up today, and it feels like I've finally started my life, "...and I'm **perfect** with everything that happened between us."

The smile stretching across her face is so precious, so valuable, that it could not be bought, not by anyone, especially not by me. And as she finally breaks the silence, with a voice sounding like it could never break anything, let alone something as easy as the quiet, I feel myself melt into a million puddles.

"I still can't believe I'm here. That **we're** here, like this." An almost innocent smile graces her features, as she draws her hand down to mine, pulling it to her lips, and between her words she kisses each one of my fingers, "...I almost thought it was a dream this morning. I think it's why I had to get up and run out..." My eyes must furrow in some form of silly insecurity, because she stops kissing, letting her words flow faster than before "...No, no, not like that or anything. I just - I needed to see the real world to make sure I was still inside it. Because I've wanted this, with you, for a long time. For a time that has to be longer than a couple of weeks. Since the minute we met, Shady, and I needed to make sure it was really happening. I needed to make sure that the minute I left here, I was coming back here..." With a humble smile, maybe realizing she's been rambling or maybe realizing she's been speaking nothing but the truth, a blushing truth, she leans down to me, shortly kissing my lips. Shortly doing something that feels eternal, because it's still something I'm not used to, it's still something so amazing that I'm still not sure I'll ever get used to it.

I don't think I'll ever want to get used to something like Spencer.

She pulls away painfully slow, so slow I can still taste the coffee on her breath, and I think I'm starting to really like coffee, "...but now I'm wishing I'd never gotten out of bed. Not when I could have had all your amazing kisses, Ash."

Completely missing her compliment, the one that should leave me speechless, I feel giddiness fill my lips for an entirely different reason, as I practically coo, "You called me Ash." And as I see her eyes fall slightly, slumping into a category too close to the one belonging to me, I quickly add, "...I really liked it."

"Yeah?" Turquoise eyes light up once again, brighter than a starry sky, as her hands move to caringly cup my face, coffees and teas long forgotten, while our mouths meet once again. While our lips surround and hug and embrace each other, until she reluctantly leans back "...wanna show me how much you liked it?"

And before I can blush or stutter or say words that should belong to her, that she should say and has always said, I feel a moan leave my lungs, husky words breathing straight into her "...Come 'ere."

Because these words belong to me, these are the words I have always wanted to say, and as I pull her toward me, crawling us both back to the head of the bed, I give her those words. I give her all these things that belong to her. All these things that were meant for her.

I give her all the things that have changed.

And a girl who's no longer the same.

-----------  
"Ashley?" My eyes snap from the potatoes to the head of the table, finding my mother looking at me expectantly, "Did you hear what I asked?"

"Yes."

But I didn't. Truth is, I haven't heard a word she's said all day, haven't heard a word of anything outside my own head. I'm still living inside this past weekend, stuck between the crisp and damp sheets of my bed. Phantom limbs belonging to Spencer still tied and wrapped around mine.

"Well? Did you have a good weekend or not?"

She's laughing now, almost in an amused way, and it should calm my nerves. It should bring a smile to my face, because I most certainly did have a good weekend. But I can't tell her that, because then I'll have to tell her about the classes skipped and limbs tangled and lips kissed.

So I stutter into oblivion, instead.

"I, uh, yeah. I mean, it was ok. I didn't do that much. You know, just hung out and read a little. And, um, watched tv. Yeah, I watched a lot of tv."

I swear the dining room just roared with awkwardness.

"So I'm not sure of something..." My fathers gravelly voice cuts through the tension in a teetering way, still unclear as to which way he's gonna take the room, "...did you watch a lot of tv or not??"

His sudden laughter has never been so reassuring. So comforting, as a big breath of relief leaves me. Finally feeling like I can be myself in front of the people who gave me myself. The only people I've ever been myself with.

Until Spencer came along.

"So did you and Spencer get together at all?"

I almost choke on my dinner, feeling like my mother can read every thought spinning through my head, only heightening the paranoia. Heightening that fear of being found out, which is very odd, because why wouldn't I want to be found out? Why wouldn't I want to tell my mother, my best friend, my _only_ friend for such a long time, about the prettiest girl in the world and how that girl wants _me_. How that girl makes _me_ happy.

And how _I_ make her happy too.

"Not really, we hung out a little on Friday, but that's it."

But somehow, I can't tell her about that pretty girl, and those things that have changed me. And it would make me incredibly sad, if it weren't for those eyes belonging to my mother (that belong to me as well) still staring at me. The words "uh huh" and "yeah right" practically radiating from her.

"Really? That's strange. I thought you'd want to hang out with her a lot more often. Since you were all by yourself."

It's strange, the tone and words my mother's given me. While I understand what she's saying, there's something beneath them, something that hits a little too hard and cuts a little too deep. That reminds me of a girl who lived inside books and the corner of her childhood, and how she might have been the loneliest girl in the world.

"Oh no, I was ok. I was good."

Which I was, and I wish I could tell her how good. I wish I could show her that new girl living inside me, and how she's never felt so _not_ alone in her whole entire little life.

"Good. I'm glad."

She sounds like she means it, like she's relieved, and it's not sitting well with me. It's not making anything better. It's only making me upset. So upset. Because now I'm lying to my mother. I'm lying to a person I've never ever lied to.

And that person believes me.

"Yeah, well, I have a lot of work to get started on so I'm gonna get going on that."

So I remove myself from this situation, I get myself out of here, because my mother's eyes are still looking at me, and they're still seeing the daughter they've always known. They're still seeing that nine year old girl, completely missing the new grown up that's hiding before her, and I'm still letting her miss it. I'm still letting her believe everything as it was, when life was so very simple and so very sad.

And as I make my way out of the room, her cheery, maybe skeptical, "Ok sweetie." resonates across every wall of the long hallway I'm walking down toward my room. Toward any kind of safety. But I can barely breathe as I make my way inside, leaning back against the shut door. Feeling no sense of comfort inside this room that was the most comfortable place I've ever been a few short hours ago. Hours where it was just Spencer and me, living inside our own little world, inside my world of a bed, telling secret tales between our foreign, yet familiar, lips.  
Spencer. I miss her. I miss her already, and she only just left. And I wish she were here, I wish she were right beside me, making me feel better, like she always does. Like she did all morning. Making me forget the times where she wasn't around to kiss everything away. Forgetting the times where kissing was as elusive as a ghost.

Taking a deep breath, I find myself caught inside a contradiction, somehow also thankful she's not here. She's not on that bed, beside me, holding my face, and my hands, and my heart. Holding it all, while she makes it all better with just her lips, with just her smile, and the way she says my name. The way she makes me miss her, even when she's still next to me.

But then my phone rings, like a light inside my suddenly ambiguous life, and I don't even hesitate to answer it. I don't even blink. Because I know who it is. Because it's _her_. And I already know, no matter what happens, no matter how crazy things become, no matter how much I convince myself otherwise - I could never be thankful for her not being _here_.

So when I answer, when I say hello to Spencer, I whisper "Hey" like she might break or disappear if I say it any louder. And her breath on the other end, practically echoing a smile I can perfectly see in my mind's eye, is perhaps the most comforting sound I've ever heard.

"Hey there, _Ash_." I can't stop the smile from overtaking my face, from erasing so many needless lines of worry, because really, how could anyone frown when they're tied to _this_ girl? When I'm a part of Spencer and she's a part of me.

"Miss me?" Her sweet and flirty voice breaks my wandering train of thought, opening my lips wider. A full on grin cracking my face horizontally in half.

"Just a little bit."

It's almost as sweet and flirty as her voice and I feel myself beam with pride. For the words that are coming more and more easily. For my words sounding just like hers. But really, for my words sounding exactly like mine.

"Good. Because I miss you too." A sigh fills the comforting silence, the warmth between our separated bodies somehow escalating, all because of our honest words, "...I actually miss you a lot."

And it takes no time at all for me to reassure her, to breathe, "Me too."

I finally leave that hard and shut door, ready to drop to that soft and open bed. To _our_ bed where I can still smell her shampoo if I try hard enough, if I hardly try at all, because I think that scent has been forever ingrained inside me.

"I wish I was still there with you."

My heart physically aches from such a statement, from the vulnerability in her voice, completely mirroring everything I feel.

"Me too." Once again breathes from my still swollen lips, remembering her wet and warm kisses and starting to wonder if I'll ever forget them. Praying I never will. Silence takes hold, and it floats on easily. So easily, like a paddle boat on a sunny pond, just drifting through the afternoon. enjoying the peace and quiet.

"Well then..." But her voice singing into my ear, mischief and giddiness living everywhere inside her words, breaks the silence, but comes nowhere close to breaking the ease, "...tell me your night and what I've missed! Tell me everything."

So I do. I tell her everything through a smile, right there in my bed, that's really ours because it wasn't till I slept with her in it, kissing the night away, that it actually felt like a piece of me. Like a part of something bigger than me, and how suddenly my life had turned into a _life_.

And as Spencer excitedly jumps in with her own words, her own pieces of herself meant for me, I feel my smile grow. I feel the fear of being found dissipate. I feel no one's eyes on me but _hers_ and how they might be all I'll ever need.

How this girl, the prettiest one I've ever seen, might love me.

And how maybe that's worth lying for. 


	17. The Spashley Closet

I fell asleep with Spencer in my hand. I drifted off with Spencer's voice and breath in my ear. I dreamt of so many words. Words of want and miss and need. Words belonging to her. Words belonging to me.

Last night, I fell asleep perfectly.

And right now, on this raining but beautiful Monday morning, as I roam down long hallway after long hallway, I _still_ feel it. I still feel Spencer. Her presence. Her love, echoing in my ear, reverberating through my heart. Her sky eyes, searing into me, somehow reaching mine through a telephone wire. And it's strange, feeling all these new things while walking through this same school. While shuffling inside red Chucks and hidden baggy clothes from my old life.

I shouldn't feel differently while I live in everything from "before". I shouldn't feel like a different person. But I do. In the wake of "after", I _am_ different. Because today, as I pass by all the people that never noticed me and still don't notice me, that still bump into me without a sorry, I can actually smile. Because in my mind I still see Spencer's unbelievably gorgeous face next to mine, on top of mine, kissing mine. On my hips, I still feel her feather fingers, rolling over my back. Hands holding my waist, pulling me close, and needing me near.

Suddenly, a tiny laugh escapes me. Baffled into giddiness. Because Spencer wants me and Spencer needs me and it's been so long since I've ever thought someone might feel that way for me. It's been forever since I've ever believed someone would.

But then I'm no longer walking anywhere, I'm only being pulled _somewhere_. I only feel myself being pulled closer, like someone needs me near. Hearing a door shut behind me, I find myself smothered in darkness and covered in _those_ hands. Those hands that cupped me close yesterday morning. That broke my life right in half.

"Gotcha."

Whispers in my ear, as an aching mouth gingerly kisses below it.

"Spencer?"

I rasp, foolishly, because who else would it be?

"Yes, silly, who else would it be?" Adorably, she giggles _my_ words against me, hands hugging my hips, keeping our bodies flush against each other. And I laugh too, feeling like I'm ten years old again with a world of excitement beating inside my little heart.

"Yeah, I know. There's no one else but you."

For some reason, these easy words come out far heavier than they seem. Suggesting so much more than just this moment, and I think she knows it. I think she feels it, all the things that an "after" has granted us. Because without even seeing her, without being able to, I know where she's looking, I know where she's heading. And then she's there. She's _here_. Against me. Lips to lips. Breath to breath. Heart to heart.

And now I _know_ I'll never get used to this. Thankfully, luckily, Spencer will always feel new to me.

Lazily, she leans back from me, hands moving off my body, and I can't help but bring her back. Wrapping my fingers around the collar of her polo shirt, I draw her mouth back to mine, feeling her smile of surprise between my teeth. Feeling the flutter in my heart, realizing there's a boldness growing in me.

"Where are we?"

I ask into her mouth, unable to completely leave it. Unable to let go of her lips after knowing what it's like without ours pressed together for too long. After a night of make out dreaming, I can't let a morning of make out reality slip through my fingers.

But she slips away with a sigh, showing her same reluctance to leave the world existing between only us. Suddenly she drapes the room in light through what sounds like a flick of a switch.

"I'm not really sure what this place is. I guess some kind of storage closet..." Her explanation launches into an adorable ramble as I just watch her slender body covered in mellow light. Just taking in the way her eyes flick from dusty item to dusty item, looking so beyond sweet and gorgeous and sexy and _mine_, "...to be honest, I saw you coming down the hall and had to have you to myself..." Finally blue mixes with brown, creating my new favorite color between us, as her eyes fall into mine again, "...So I kinda yanked you to the closest private place..." But then her forehead creases with worry, like she's insecure or something, "...I'm sorry if I scared you - "

And I can't let her go on anymore. I can't let her miss the grin crossing my face, the cheek cracking smile that's spreading across it like wildfire, somehow reaching my toes, because how did I get so lucky? How did I manage to make Spencer Carlin, beautiful and untouchable Spencer Carlin, unable to control herself?

So I reach out for her once more, somewhat shakily (because I've never done this before, because I'm still not used to _this)_, curling my fingers around the waistband of her perfectly tight jeans. The same jeans that all those snobby art students wear, and now that I'm feeling them wrapped around something so beautiful, something that is Spencer, suddenly they don't seem so snobby. Suddenly those kids don't seem so scary. Because with Spencer among them, those kids only look like a very pale version of perfection.

Our mouths kiss short series of pecks, before I feel her giddy against me, "So you didn't mind my kidnapping act then?"

All I can do is shake my head "No", because I can't break away. I can't waste my lips and teeth and tongue on something like words.

"Good..." She's giggling now, sending delicious little vibrations through my body, and I wonder if it's from my eager mouth, "...I think it shall be called the Spashley closet from now on. Our secret hideaway place..." One wet kiss smooched to my mouth's left corner, "...Oooh, just like the Boiler Room on My So-Called Life..." A short gasp, "...Oh my God, can I be your Jordan Catalano??"

Her adorable excitement, paired with my utter confusion, is enough to pull me away just far enough to see her bright eyes. Far enough to reflect her shining smile.

"Jordan who?"

My hands around her neck (when they got there, I have no clue) tie themselves across her skin, linking together like they have no intentions of ever unlinking.

"Uh, Jordan Catalano??" Spoken like this were just common knowledge, her eyes widen when she sees it is not common knowledge, at least not for me, "...Jared Leto?? My So-Called Life?!"

"I've never seen it." For the first time in my life, I say this with no sense of insecurity. No sense of foolishness for not knowing, and I can't help the joy flooding through me for that feeling of security. For knowing just how _worth_ it Spencer is.

How she might be worth everything.

"Oh, Shady..." Spencer lets out a breath of pure adoration, while her hand slides up and down my spine, making me shiver from inside out, "...I think you and me need to set up a hot date with one MSCL marathon. What do you say? My house, today, after school?"

Once again, I can't answer her. All I can do is shake my head "Yes", because how could there be any other answer for a question involving a dream word like "date"?

A shy smile crookedly crosses her mouth as she whispers "Ok", sending us to get caught up in a stare. A very intense stare, like the ones you see in the movies. Like things are never going to be the same again, and maybe this is what the actual moment of change feels like. And as my fingers unlatch from each other, sliding one across her neck, all I feel is change. All I feel is her breath stuttering low in her chest, not quite making it up to her throat, like I've stolen it with my fingertips dancing softly below her jaw.

Trying to get used to _this_, to everything that comes with an after, with change, I draw my fingers to her lips. Just tracing over them, again and again, feeling a easy smile forming beneath my gentle stroking.

Our bodies move closer together, somehow filling the barely existent space between us, as I think about her question. As I think about Jordan Catalano and all the people in this world, and all the people _she_ could have. All the people I thought I'd never have.

And then I think about Spencer. I think about how she's the one person I want and how that person's moving to kiss me again. Moving to take a little more of the heart already belonging to her, and it makes me whisper between her lips.

It makes me whisper, "You can be my anything, Spencer", so soft and so very shy. Because she's not just anything. She's not just what I want.

I think she's everything I need. 


End file.
